How should leaders realign their strategies to survive in a VUCA world? This is the question this issue of the magazine is trying to answer. We have twelve industry stalwarts putting forward their perspectives. Richard Hytner, Worldwide Deputy Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, tells managers to act quick and have unyielding curiosity and powerful decision-making capabilities; Renu Karnad, Managing Director of HDFC Limited, talks about how workplace mobility will be the future of work, while Rajeev Dubey, Group President (HR & Corporate Services) of Mahindra and Mahindra Limited, emphasizes the need for businesses to achieve a triple bottom line. Dr Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar Technologies, believes that in this constantly changing world, five-year plans of businesses will no longer be viable. We also have leaders such as Chandru Kalro, TTK Prestige; Shaheen Mistri, Teach For India; K Ganesh, Portea Medical; Vinaya Parvate, Citi; Sanjay Dawar and Raghav Narsalay, Accenture; Rohan Fernando, ZS Associates; Tanmay Saksena, Zomato; and Seema Arora Nambiar, McDonald’s® India asking leaders to rethink their business approaches. This issue also features an interview of Michael Lee Stallard, author of Connection Culture; an article elucidating the need of Indian bschools to build research capabilities by Komal Kaikini and Ram Mudambi, Fox School of Business. Margaret Neale and Thomas Z. Lys, authors of Getting More of What you Want, teach the readers the science of negotiation.
The Smart Manager, India's first world-class management magazine, was founded in 2002 by eminent business historian Dr Gita Piramal with Harvard Business School Dean, Prof. Nitin Nohria with the mission of updating managers and business practitioners in India with the latest thought-provoking strategic ideas from experienced, world-class managers, academics and consultants from across the globe. Over the years, the magazine has carried articles authored by illustrious management gurus such as the late CK Prahalad and Sumantra Ghoshal, Jack Trout, Ram Charan, Gary Hamel, Gay Haskins, Jagdish Seth and Lynda Gratton. We believe that "managers are the best teachers of managers" and most of our articles are written in the first person by top-tier CEOs such as Kumaramangalam Birla, Sunil Mittal, Aditya Birla, KV Kamath, Santrupt Mitra, Rajeev Dubey and S Ramadorai. We also have relationships with a number of B-schools around the world, apart from most top-level schools in India. The Smart Manager hosts the Tata Consultancy Services Smart Manager Case Contest, the most prestigious competition of its kind in the Indian print media. The contest, with a cash prize of INR50,000 per issue, sees wide participation from national and international business managers and students. The 'Smart" in The Smart Manager is an acronym for Strategy, Marketing, Analysis, Resources and Technology. Truly useful knowledge when you need it 24 x 365, year after year.
