MxMIndia

Category: XTREME FOCUS

  • These last few months of the year are a good time to be in the Out-of-Home industry for reasons other than the ballooning sales and all-time high occupancy of Outdoor sites.

    Ajaz Memon: It’s a time for happy choosing

    It’s that time of the year again.  New “Kandeels” and crackers are bought.  Old lights left from last year are dug out.  Festivities abound in the season of the Festival of lights.  For the quarter of the year which is considered peak season for Out-of-Home, what does it mean for the Outdoor industry to be part of the over-the-top Promotions?

    While it is a truism that except for very select brands, Outdoor continues to be a support medium for Mainline media, it is also true that off-late Diwali is the time when outdoor comes into its own.  This is so because while most of mainline media are targeted at getting consumers to shop, the actual shopping is done when the potential customer gets out of home to a point of purchase. Thus the medium which targets the client closer to the sales point is outdoor.  Smart brand custodians have realized the power of this medium and are harnessing it specially during the festival season giving rise to the “peak season” phenomenon during Diwali.

    These last few months of the year are a good time to be in the Out-of-Home industry for reasons other than the ballooning sales and all-time high occupancy of Outdoor sites. It is a quintessentially Indian Festival.  Almost all corners of the country are lit up with every possible spectrum of colour. While most of these colours are seen at offices, residences and side streets, its Outdoor which lends colour to main streets and junctions, indeed it does so round-the year, but specially during the festivities when most outdoor options are lapped  up to cater to the burgeoning shopping crowd.

    While it is obvious that consumer durables lead the pack in Festival-specific advertising, other segments are not too far behind when it comes to inducing purchases on this propitious occasion right from jewellery to realty, everyone recognizes that this is the best time to make people buy your product. Auspicious-time-to-shop coupled with the financial windfall of a Diwali Bonus leads to a unique purchase inclination for majority of Indians. And the intelligent brands are there leading the pack, following their potential buyer right from the time he leaves his house till the time he reaches anywhere where there is a potential purchase to be made. This is achieved thanks to the phenomenal reach and variety of options that OOH accords the smart brand manager. Yes, it is indeed a good time to be a OOH Professional.

    However the picture is not rosy for all.  Out-of-Home inventory is growing at a phenomenal rate, unfortunately far higher than the growth rate of the industry itself.  While in the good old days there were literally waiting lists for decent OOH options, today the glut of new media has led to the quirky scenario that you actually have decent Outdoor options sometimes vacant on Diwali.  The festival season has become the great leveler for deciding an Outdoor options’ ultimate appeal. If your site is unsold even on Diwali, its time to rethink about your inventory or costing or both. Having said that, more options only lead to more choice for the advertising community, ultimately promoting  the very same consumerism culture which the brands are themselves promoting. So Happy Diwali and Happy Choosing to all.

     

    Ajaz Memon is Director, Network Media Solutions.

  • My life has changed totally after I moved from advertising to journalism. For the better, of course.

    Anil Thakraney: It’s changed my life. No, really

    My life has changed totally after I moved from advertising to journalism. For the better, of course. Here’s how:

     

    I earn a lot less. This means no boozing, no smoking and no partying. In fact, I have had to give up on all good things in life. No problem, this keeps me fit. I am 10 kgs lighter now.

     

    I seldom get invited to parties. And Page 3 parties, in particular, are totally out of the question. This has to do with the ‘unhip’ journalism I do. No one wants to risk pissing their VIP guests off with me in the house. But this also means I have started doing yoga in the nights. Healthier than partying, no?

     

    Folks in Mumbai go to jail if they are caught driving drunk. But I get into serious strife for parking in a no-parking area. And that’s because I once did a sting operation on corrupt traffic havaldars. And these guys have a wonderful memory, aside from deep pockets. But that’s cool. Anyway I hardly drive because of the killing petrol prices.

     

    I have spent many hours in the company of beautiful movie stars. Kareena Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra, to name a few. Asking them about their intimate secrets and desires. What fun! But I have also discovered how vulnerable, ambitious and insecure they are, just like the rest of us. I emerged from these meetings totally disillusioned. But that’s okay. I can boast to my mama who lives in Alwar that I have Priyanka’s cell number.

     

    I have discovered that all the cricketing gods I idolized since childhood are actually quite petty, opportunistic and materialistic people. That they give a rat’s arse for their fans, and have interest only in making money. This has left me depressed for sure, but there’s an upside: I watch very little cricket now. Good. I have time to follow more productive passions.

     

    My not-very-sweet views on netas and underworld dons over the years have worried my family members a lot. They fear I may not return home one day. But that’s fine. At least I feel wanted by someone.

     

    And of course, people now look at me with a little more respect, which was not the case in advertising. When I last went for a snack to a very packed Kailash Parbat at Lokhandwala, the manager told me I’ll have to wait one hour forty minutes for a table. When I proudly told him I am a happening journo, he very graciously reduced the waiting time. To one hour thirty five minutes.

     

    Yup, it’s great to be in the media!

  • We just have to reach deeper into the recesses of our memories, look deeper within our souls and remember the fundamentals of how communication works.

    Karthi Marshan: An age of delight

    It is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness, it is the epoch of belief, it is the epoch of incredulity, it is the season of Light, it is the season of Darkness, it is the spring of hope, it is the winter of despair, we have everything before us, we have nothing before us…

    Isn’t it truly?

    Never before now have we in the marketing and communication disciplines known so much, about what our consumers and audiences are doing, thinking, saying than we do today, thanks to the pervasive power of the internet, social media, brain scanning et al.

    For the marketer, it is truly time to celebrate. Never before has she had access to so much information about media consumption, at so granular a level. This can only mean that the lazy, opaque premiums commanded by oligarchic media vehicles will evaporate soon, allowing marketers to be able to pay for value they can see.

    For the media owner / seller, it is also time to exult. Hard work will win, because it will deliver measurable results. And results will be rewarded. Bullies will perish, the honest will prevail. For the number crunching nerd who lived in the dungeons of the marketing world, his day in the sun has come. Marketing will be more and more about teasing knowledge out of numbers, and less and less about flying off to Mauritius to shoot bikini clad models draped on car bonnets. Unless the NumberTaker decrees it, of course.

    For the creative disciplines, it would at first appear that the end of the world is nigh. But nothing will be further from the truth. When creatives learn to harness to power of data, they will be liberated from the burden of having to say “Trust me” time and again.

    For the newcomer to this world, it is truly the best of times. Because old-timers are finding it harder and harder to say stuff like…Do it my way, because I have 30 years experience at this…So much has changed in the last 15 years that the very tenets of communication effectiveness are being questioned daily. In the marketing and media disciplines, it is as if we have just been informed that the earth is not, after all, the centre of the universe, as we have been told for hundreds of years until now.

    But all is not lost for the old-timers either. We just have to reach deeper into the recesses of our memories, look deeper within our souls and remember the fundamentals of how communication works. Then we must understand how to interpret those principles in this era of terabytes.  Before we knew how to write and print, we passed down the wisdom of our ancestors mouth to mouth. We are right back there. As babies, we learnt to talk by listening first, we learnt to appeal to adults by imitating them. It is time to remember, time to reapply ourselves. It is time to

    Rejuvenate, refresh, renew ourselves. It is time to be born again communicators. It is the best of times, it is the age of wisdom, it is the epoch of belief, it is the season of Light, it is the spring of hope, we have everything before us…

    Karthi Marshan is Head Marketing, Kotak Mahindra Group

  • From a growth standpoint, this Diwali is looking very, very promising. The fact that there is tremendous traction from the consumer’s end, monetization becomes that much easier.

    Lakshmi Narasimhan: The icing on the cake

    Digital is one of those categories in the whole of media spectrum which has seen steady growth for many years now. One can say with all the confidence that it is the most accountable medium; one which saw good traction even at a phase when many companies in India were witnessing the brunt of the slowdown in 2009. Post that, I would say there was no looking behind and the digital industry grew in double-digit numbers.

    This festive season is like the icing on the cake. We’ve seen in the recent past, many new ventures in the Internet space, WAP sites being launched, many apps being introduced by companies; increasing numbers of active Internet users, penetration of smart-phones, tablets etc all tell a fabulous growth story. It tells you that information is just a click away, doesn’t matter where you are. The result of all this is the changing consumption of digital media from a consumer standpoint.  As far as digital media is concerned, it is just the right opportunity to engage with consumers.

    From a growth standpoint, this Diwali is looking very, very promising. The fact that there is tremendous traction from the consumer’s end, monetization becomes that much easier.

    So yes, Diwali has been good for us (Web 18) and mostly there are positive signs for the industry as well. What we must look to do from here is to carry forward the momentum to next year.

     

    Lakshmi Narasimhan is CEO, Web 18.

  • The next five years are going to be a golden period for the broadcast industry.

    Markand Adhikari: It’s growth and growth

    Diwali is a special time for broadcast channels for they can tweak their programming towards catering to the festive moods of consumers, especially the news and entertainment channels. The festive season also brings in additional revenues in form of ad sales or sponsorships on key events and properties.  Media owners generally do get some benefit out of the festive season, where consumers are in the buying mode and when maximum sales happen during the year. We see categories like jewellery and consumer brands do a lot of advertising on TV.

     

    This season, we’ve seen quite a lot of traction from advertisers. A very good year – one of the best I would say for the broadcast industry, if we consider the past four to five years.  We’ve come up with some really good programming for Mastii. And I’m sure a lot of other channels are doing their bit around Diwali.

    Going forward, I think the broadcast industry will see growth and more. Next Diwali, as I see it, will be even better as far as business growth is concerned. Channel owners will up their ad rates. Subscription revenue will increase and once that begins to happen, on-air spots will be sold at a premium. That’s a big challenge, but I’m sure the industry is moving towards that, slowly but surely.

    As far as competition is concerned, with increasing media fragmentation, I think that companies which are able to hold their ground for next three years, will reap maximum benefits, as the way I see it, next five years are going to be a golden period for the broadcast industry.

     

    Markand Adhikari is Managing Director, Sri Adhikari Brothers

  • The top giver this year has to be Team Anna. Every day, all the members, former and current, work so hard to gift the media something substantial so that juicy stories and screaming debates can be organised.

    Ranjona Banerji: Giving with a twist

    Maybe Diwali is shining bright this year and maybe, well, there are a few dull spots here and there. Ads in newspapers over the past month certainly show that real estate and white goods are back in demand and jewellery it seems never goes out of fashion.

    But as journalists, you don’t have to count Diwali in terms of what you get (so how many media houses actually bother to give their employees anything for Diwali any more?) in material terms but what you get as, well, material.

    The top giver this year has to be Team Anna. Every day, all the members, former and current, work so hard to gift the media something substantial so that juicy stories and screaming debates can be organised. Tax evasions, slipper-chucking, chamber-bashing, endless fasts – which forced television to find every synonym for abstinence from food it could come up with across several Indian languages – dramatic exits, allegations, self-righteous sanctimony… sometimes you’re lucky as a journalist to get such a cornucopia of riches maybe once a year. Team Anna has been giving generously since April.

    The next most generous has to be the film industry (and I don’t mean press conference gifts or the air kisses some film star blows a young, impressionable film reporter who now thinks they’re BFF). Every other week a movie releases with such an enormous publicity blast that you need at least six months to recover. It is another matter that the film bombs before anyone sees it and is as same old same old as the last one. The publicity blitz is far more important than the film itself and generates so many stories. So what if most of them are fake? This season, it has been Shahrukh Khan who has been most kind. Now, anyone going to see the movie, errr, what’s it called?

    In most years, cricket would top the list but what started out as a great cricket year what with the World Cup and the IPL and then the England tour oops… um, what happened after that? My mind has gone a bit blank. There should have been stories galore but then I don’t know, whatever, cricket, yeah.

    The Sensex is usually good for some drama but this year, well, it’s behaved very badly, in a damp squib kind of way. Instead, rising higher and higher has been the inflation rate, so you know, you lose some and you lose some. Not quite a breezy Diwali story.

    Big thanks could go to our politicians who are usually ready with some fun stuff. Of course they never fail so there’s nothing new or unexpected here. We’re used to it. Sometimes, it’s like Diwali gifts every day.

    Now that Diwali is done and dusted, let’s see what kind of parties we get thrown for New Year.

    Have a good one.

  • Marketing is neither for the coldhearted nor is it for the overconfident

    Sudeep Narayan: A world of many hats

    Cold war; Combative; guerilla; carpet bombing; sniper – various battlefield strategies and tactics flare-up inside a marketers mind.

    Marketing is neither for the coldhearted nor is it for the overconfident.

    Will this design be accepted? Is this the latest in technology? Will our customers accept the price? What would be the customers expectation 5 years from now? Should we as a corporation look to ‘shift the paradigm’? For all these answers turn to the Marketing Head’s page. They will know. Image the expectation within the organisation and the expectation outside. Will the client see value in investing in this creative rendition? Swap the headline with thesub-head and increase the logo. The rest is approved.

    There seems to be more questions in marketing than answers. This gives birth to the ‘idea of exploration’ birth to the Americas. One challenging fact however bears more significance to marketing – the everchanging landscape and the need for ‘Envisaging’. They who explore the unknown are ready with an app within the first week of the iPad launch.

    A marketing professional needs to know everything. Period. Compelled to wear different hats

    Professor Product hat – if you don’t have knowledge about your product, how would you know its different from others in the market.

    Design Guru Stetson – every design has its virtues. Which one appeals to the brand values and the customers psychie. What is the ‘Natural-fit’. Some brands have suffered defeat in the marketplace for being congruent to the core values.

    Doctor Economist Beret – brand valuation; supplychain; demand forecasting and the understanding of all the economies of scale

    Shrink cap – another optional career for marketers is counselling. The daily challenges makes marketers understand psychology.

    Moolah topi – even the finance experts of the company expect marketing execs to balance the sheet.

     

    Nuff said. Marketing is a great place to be!

     

    Sudeep Narayan is Marketing and PR Director, Volvo.

  • Prathap Suthan: It’s great to be in the creative business

    By Prathap Suthan

    I can be forever young. I can keep on vicariously living my teenage life, rewinding, recasting, redubbing, and capturing all that in different stories, in different media.

    I can be anyone. I am hired to be schizophrenic.

    I can be Captain Cook on a voyage across the Pacific. I can be an acid rocker tripping on psychedelic life. I can be Sobers playing T20 in Hawaii.

    I can be passionate, energetic, moody, trendy, whacked out, sober, argumentative, flaky, sober, drunk, devious, intelligent, dull, unshaven, rude, and silent on occasions.

    I can be a prism of complications, and a spectrum of vibrancy.

    I can be in the middle of the Sahara, watching sharks ski down snow slopes, chasing long necked hippos, snacking on broccoli burgers and drinking pumpkin champagne.

    I can be inventive, innovative or boringly conservative, with a Gothic skew.

    I can create anything in my head, and it doesn’t have to respect gravity. Or consider the consequences of anything that Einstein theorized.

    I can buck rules. I can duck rules. I can rewrite history. I can draw new geography.

    I can borrow Spain. I can import Russia. I can buy Neptune. I can sell Pluto.

    I can officially sit at home all day and brood over karma.

    I can build space rockets. I can trash missiles. I can chomp nuclear bombs. I can burp oxygen. I can eat anything. I can drink everything.

    I can do whatever inside my mind. I can be holy, or unholy. I can be a father, or mother, or son, or daughter, or cousin, or pet dog.

    I can be a sofa, a couch, or a dining table with three legs.

    I can get inside a goat’s stomach. I can talk to a pebble. I can discuss world economics with an earthworm. I can want cyanide.

    I can fall in love. I can fall out of love. I can have four mouths, and 11 eyes. I can be articulate. I can be respectful. I can be middle class at 2.30 pm.

    I can declare wars. I can start revolutions. I can explore everywhere. I can go ahead in time. I can go back into the past.

    I can be sensible. I can be illogical. I can be commonplace. I can be exotic. I can find relevance. I can find meaning. I can be original. I can be fake.

    I can be anywhere. I can travel on the back of a bumblebee. I can breathe nitrogen. I can barbecue a not so friendly barracuda underwater.

    I can fly with an eagle, and pluck its feathers.

    I can be Hitler. I can be your neighbour. I can be Pele. I can be Hannibal. I can be Cupid. I can be a cow with a hangover.

    In fact, I can be what I want to be, and pretty much do what I want to do. I am only limited by my imagination, civility, and budgets.

    Thank goodness for our business. And thank goodness I can have more fun tomorrow.

     

    Prathap Suthan is Chief Creative Officer at iYogi.

  • To resort to a cliche, there's never a dull moment and that suits most journalists very well.

    Sukumar Ranganathan: Journos and media exec in a unique position

    Try as I may, I find myself unable to summon the enthusiasm inherent in the headline , so I am going to refine the topic a bit.

    It is an exciting time to be in media. A combination of circumstances — increased political and business activity, and a reduction in information asymmetry thanks to regulations such as the Right to Information Act and technology — has meant a significant increase in news flow. To resort to a cliche, there’s never a dull moment and that suits most journalists very well.
    Yet, it’s a challenging time as well.

    To stay relevant, newsrooms have to be proficient in multiple media and editors should understand print, video, the Internet, and social media. The business case for some of these is still being written, but that doesn’t mean they can be ignored. The good news for print journalists like me trying to cope with a whole new world is that print will continue to exist, even thrive in India.

    There’s also another challenge newsrooms face, one that many are just waking up to. The reduction in information asymmetry that gives them access to news they once wouldn’t have had access to, also gives readers and viewers access to information about how journalists work. Many newsrooms in India still work without a journalistic code and, over time, this will put off both readers (or viewers) and advertisers.

    Given all these, work is complex, interesting, hard, stressful, and sometimes fun.
    But great? I don’t really know.

    It is, at once, both exciting and frightening, to be in the middle of great change of the sort that the Indian media landscape is going through.

    I think I can safely say that journalists and media executives find themselves in a unique position.

     

    Sukumar Ranganathan is the Editor of Mint.

  • All the Diwali 2011 Specials

    Diwali specials by: Markand Adhikari, Ranjona Banerji, Karthi Marshan, Ajaz Memon, Lakshmi Narasimhan, Sudeep Narayan, Prashant Panday, Sukumar Ranganathan, Prathap Suthan, Anil Thakraney

    All the Diwali 2011 Specials

     

    It’s great to be in the media…

     

    Markand Adhikari: It’s growth and growth

    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4550

     

     

    Ranjona Banerji: Giving with a twist

    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4555

     

     

    Karthi Marshan: An age of delight
    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4544

     

     

    Ajaz Memon: It’s a time for happy choosing
    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4537

     

     

    Lakshmi Narasimhan: The icing on the cake
    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4545

     

     

    Sudeep Narayan: A world of many hats
    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4560

     

     

    Prashant Panday: ‘Coz radio is sexy!
    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4557

     

     

    Sukumar Ranganathan: Journos and media exec in a unique position
    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4563

     

     

    Prathap Suthan: It’s great to be in the creative business
    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4551

     

     

    Anil Thakraney: It’s changed my life. No, really
    http://www.mxmindia.com/?p=4540

     

     

    Package coordinated by Rishi Vora with Tuhina Anand, Akash Raha and Shubhangi Mehta
    Big Story image: Rafiq

  • For the new generation ‘new’ is disposable. New keeps changing every moment and what matters to them is ‘now’.

    AdAsia: Big Ideas in the Age of Now

    By Akash Raha

    Emerging from the real-timeness of the ‘anytime, anywhere’ economy, the ‘present’ has never been so dominant in the life of business / marketing professionals and consumers. There is a surfeit of ‘so-called’ ideas but there is always a short-supply of the ‘big’ idea that results in creative disruption. Robert Senior, Creative Chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi in the ‘The Pursuit of Big Ideas in the Age of Now’ showcased some of the big ideas that have made a difference and also highlighted the taxonomy of pursuing big ideas.

    The word ‘new’ has lost its significance in today’s world. For the new generation ‘new’ is disposable. New keeps changing every moment and what matters to them is ‘now’. There has been a movement of era of ‘new’ to age of ‘now’. With the change of this era changes the shift from attention to participation, inform to inspire, interruption to interaction, return of investment to return of involvement and local to global.

    It’s a volatile world we live in, and in all spheres – from political to financial. Also, the future is uncertain, complex and ambiguous. In such a scenario, it is very hard to plan for the future, because the future is so dynamic. So the question one asks is, we are uncertain about the future… what do we do next? The creeping in of fear at such a point is inevitable. The creative mind isn’t immune from fear. But the creative mind deals with fear. A creative mind loves problems and loves to solve them. With the problems, also come possibilities of creating newer things, newer ideas, and better ideas. Ideas like these can be the prism of hope. Amazing things can happen when you have ideas and are innovative. The essence is to capture the moment and be creativity.

    Creativity in a way, said Mr Senior, is like science, it’s meant to be experimented with. It has to be tried and tested in order to get to the desired result.

    One of the biggest clichés of the advertising industry, he said, was the concept of ‘Big Idea’. The question one asks is, how big is the idea, and is the idea really that big? There is no such thing as a big or small ideas, it all about having ideas in general and then nurturing them. Anyone can kill an idea, even a moron can. But the essence is to find value in a idea and then make it big. Nurturing a tiny idea into a so-called ‘big idea’ is the key.

    One of the things important in today’s world is speed. The world is moving so fast that by the time you nurture your idea, the time when the idea could be implemented is gone. Hence, speed, agility and being nimble are essential.

    He urged advertisers to believe and trust in the strength of ideas. Ideas that can create a difference, ideas that can make an impact. Talking about the current world scenario, he said it is of the essence that we try and make a difference, however small. It is okay to be a little enraged, a little angry; it is okay to dream and do something crazy. Ideas have a lot to do with emotions, and an upsurge of emotions causes action.

    Talking about the Israel and Palestine issue he gave example of how an idea (a campaign) tried to make a difference in the war-inflicted area. He went on to say that ideas are nice and creating ideas is nice, but the next step is more important. It is important to bring some action to it. It’s good to be enraged and angry with something you feel passionately about. Such anger and resentment often appeals to the heart. “Let’s give some context to the world which is fast losing its plot.” Let our heart work wonders and then we should do something that might not change our world, but do something that our children can be proud of. The speaker brought the power of ideas and connected it with emotions, and touched everyone’s heart.

  • Volatility is not a part of our life any more, it is our life, says the PepsiCo chief. Hence, make volatility an intrinsic part of the plan.

    AdAsia: Indra Nooyi’s answer to uncertainty, creative adaptability

    By Akash Raha

    In the current times of volatility managing business and brands is no easy task. Yet, we have the example of PepsiCo which has thrived in the New World Order though thick and thin. The final session of AdAsia captured Ms Indra Nooyi’s perspective Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo who stimulated the delegates with her ideas on how to manage business with de-averaged realities.

    She said that it is indeed a difficult task for CEOs to navigate an enterprise when uncertainty is the only certainty. Especially when we have not seen such volatility that one has not seen in the last few decades, what does one do?  At such a framework, prediction is very difficult, especially when it is about the future. But the question is, hasn’t the future always been as such, as unpredictable as it is right now? But no, I do believe, she said, that there is something unnerving about the uncertainty we feel today. Be it financial sphere or the political sphere, these are the times of immense upheaval and turmoil.

    At such times, it was inevitable that creativity gave way to fear and risk. There are several crises that we have faced in the recent times and from which we need to learn a lot. The first challenge she mentioned was the crisis of leadership. “One of the great tasks of leadership is to prepare when the storm comes.” And it won’t be wrong to say that several leaders of reputed companies failed to avert the tension. Hence, one of the most important things for most companies is to build strong leadership base over a long period of time. Another crisis that we faced in the recent times was the crisis of government failure. Governance of several countries around the globe failed so much so, that it has caused a crisis of expectations. Many of us don’t know or have forgotten what success looks like anymore. Financial, social and political failure all at the same time hasn’t helped the cause of anyone.

    Yet there are several positives that has emerged in recent times, one of them is that of emergence of the women force in the emerging market – more than twice the size of India and China together. There are plenty to reasons to give cause to optimism. The only certainty today is, that the world is uncertain. So the question is, how can we survive and thrive in such situation? Darwin’s theory of evolution still holds good and they key in such a scenario is that to adapt. It’s not the strongest that survive, but the fittest.  As a CEO of PepsiCo, said Ms Nooyi, I have seen so much change since I joined. “All of us have to explicitly realize that we are in a new reality… I don’t think that we can plan in the way we used to plan. Volatility is not a part of our life any more, it is our life.” Hence, when you plan, make volatility an intrinsic part of the plan. “We need to plan the next plan while the ink on our first plan is still drying out”, she added.

    Another important thing is that leaders have to lead for today. It’s important that the leaders and institution give something back to the society and stay relevant. Having a vision for the future is essential. Also, leaders should know about the element of uncertainty beforehand and keep it always as a variable in their scheme of things.

    We see how growth is elusive in many parts of the world. This is not a time for small changes; we need big changes in to big things. There must be seamless and borderless innovation to make something big happen. “Disrupt yourselves deliberately, otherwise competition will disrupt you.  The usual way of working will not work anymore.

    Lastly, it is essential to get new talent in the business and nurture them. Experience of the quality people and leaders we have in our company are invaluable. But also essential is training leaders, creating young leaders. In our company, said Ms Nooyi, we are trying to give the knowledge of East and West, about various ethnicity and cultures to all our budding upcoming leaders. Companies across boards need to rethink the whole process of leadership development.

    Leaders of today have to be super visible to the organization and to the outside world. Interaction with the outside world is absolutely necessary at times such as these. One should be transparent, truthful and open. Because, if the leader does not tell them, someone else will and then there will be speculation and rumours which is absolutely detrimental to the cause of any company. Have an open door policy. It is always a good advice always, but now it is imperative. The answer to uncertainty is simple, it is creative adaptability.