Mr. Nitin Seth (MD & Country Head, Fidelity Worldwide Investment) kicked off the session by sharing his own career experiences with class. The winner of President’s Gold Medal at IIM Lucknow was the first student to be picked by McKinsey from campus. He did consultancy across industry - manufacturing, operations improvement, financial institutions and business strategy. After an attempt at entrepreneurship, he came back to McKinsey to spearhead McKinsey Knowledge Center (McKC). When he joined McKC, it was merely a research back office with hardly 30 people. McKC had been a very satisfying experience for him. Mr. Nitin transformed the center into largest and most diverse knowledge hub at McKinsey. Indian IT/ITeS sector is close to his heart and he has been closely associated with NASSCOM.
Nitin emphasized that there are lot of opportunities in India in current economic scenario. Organization need to undergo transformation – the biggest reason being the challenges in global environment. Somehow, India has not been up to the mark in producing leaders. There is perhaps no direct answer, but “few reasons could be – British subjugation, and weak political and educational system” – he emphasized.
Talking about organizational transformation, Mr Nitin identified 4 forces coming together that may force an organization to introspect and go for transformation –
1. Global economic crisis – Organizations have gathered an unsustainable level of debt – a serious issue.
2. High degree of competitions as markets is going global.
3. Shift of wealth from west to east has led to increased purchasing power in Asia.
4. Technology has always caused a paradigm shift in way organizations do business. These days following 4 factors are kind of trend that businesses must not ignore –
a. Social Media
b. Explosive growth in reach and power of mobile phones
c. Growth of data
d. Cloud computing
Mr. Nitin stressed that to remain competitive – Organization must act fast. Change has to happen at all levels. Everyone in organization should take responsibility. This is again one of the ways to bring out the leader within. Mr. Nitin also shared best practices in driving change –
1. Organization must understand and evaluate the change before implementing it.
2. The change has to be communicated well through simple and consistent messages.
3. Identify change agents: Communication has to be decentralized; organizations need to identify people who can pass on the message.
4. Focus on quick fix – It helps organization to build trust and confidence within and outside.
5. “Go slow to go fast” – Organizations must think long term and not try to rush into everything.
6. Need to build stronger stakeholder position.
Again, for a organization to succeed, it needs leaders. Is there a quick formula? Answer is “NO”. However, Mr Nitin was kind to share a few traits that every leader must have. He termed this framework as 5C that leaders possess.
The whole class was inspired and mesmerized by in depth knowledge of Mr. Nitin. After Q&A, class thanked Mr. Nitin for sharing pearls of wisdom with students.
- Siddharth Asthana
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