Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Specials / Management/  Corporate lessons from Aam Aadmi Party’s victory
BackBack

Corporate lessons from Aam Aadmi Party’s victory

Companies need to rethink strategy and learn from the Aam Aadmi Party's victory

Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/MintPremium
Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint

V.K. Madhav Mohan, corporate mentor

The successful run of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi assembly election has turned conventional political wisdom in India on its head, says V.K. Madhav Mohan, a mentor to various companies and author of a book on leadership titled Lonely at the Top. Here, Mohan lists some lessons:

l Idealism has mass appeal and can be leveraged into electoral seats;

l Barriers to entry into politics have been obliterated. What’s needed is sincerity, clarity of thought and hard work;

l The existing political establishment is no match for one-to-one, direct communication with clear ideas, all of which is force multiplied by social media usage;

l The erosion of pseudo-leadership is total. The political establishment has zero credibility;

l New ideas and processes are necessary;

l Change can now occur in an instant. A big-bang approach is relevant;

l Honesty, integrity and competence are the new non-negotiable gold standards in public life;

Mohan says companies need to rethink strategy and learn the following from the AAP’s victory:

l The command and control hierarchy is irrelevant. Therefore, leaders have to change their mindset to become inclusive, inspirational and farsighted at a personal level;

l Disintermediation is here to stay. Technology has force-multiplied ideology. Now, rich relationships can be formed and furthered directly with millions of individual customers. Distribution networks need to be reconfigured to connect directly with customers.

l Transparency is no longer a pious platitude, it is a real force that extracts a fearsome price for Machiavellian machinations. Simple, direct, clear and open intentions and communication are the new essential condition in personal and professional interactions. That is because information is free and spreads in real-time with no control or suppression possible;

l Social media and online business are no longer esoteric concepts. They are a real and demanding environment;

l Leaders have to make substantive changes in their style, personality, standard operating procedures and organizational structure to map to the needs of young employees and younger customers;

l Finally, technology makes rapid growth possible, competence overshadows seniority and structure mirrors markets.

Uday Salunkhe, group director, WeSchool

“If one were to look at the AAP’s journey, its leaders and followers, corporate India could take home some very interesting lessons to reflect on," says Uday Salunkhe, group director of L.N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research (now WeSchool) in Mumbai.

The blue ocean strategy, a popular business strategy, suggests an organization should create new demand in an uncontested market space rather than compete head-to-head with other suppliers in an existing industry, says Salunkhe.

The AAP put this into action by their choice of whom they were communicating to, Salunkhe says, adding, “We all know the lotus can bloom in muddy water; the question is how many of us are proactive to look in the muddy waters."

Listening pays rich dividends: “Disconnect to connect. The noise of everything the organization wants to say can become too loud to be able to listen to the customer," Salunkhe says.

Empathy for what people feel and designing businesses to do something about it can create businesses that not only capture the “pocket" but also the “heart" of consumers, according to him.

Distinction helps decision-making: Salunkhe says by creating a completely different kind of political promise, the AAP became a brand with a distinction that caught the imagination of voters across classes.

But Salunkhe also lists out some of AAP’s misses from which Indian companies can learn:

What if it works? Plan to sustain: The AAP never envisaged a situation where it may need to collaborate to ensure it is able to deliver the promise it made to the people. So not taking up responsibility when the moment arrives is giving up the very purpose one started out with.

Plan for scalability: While the AAP has provided an option that works, they probably have not given thought to how they will scale up if they meet with success.

It is like having a fantastic product or service idea that works only in a specific zone, and with the time taken to scale it up, it runs the risk of losing the consumer connect and demand created and the danger of giving its competitors time to learn, re-align and capture the marketplace. So, planning for rapid scalability is almost a responsibility for the brand.

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 24 Dec 2013, 10:27 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App