X-Tend ’14: Experts share perspectives on making organisations future ready

X-TEND 2014 – the maiden leadership conclave of XLRI and the flagship event of the XLRI Leadership Series was held on the XLRI campus on 17th April, 2014. We bring you the highlights from the event. 

Jamshedpur, 17th April, 2014: XLRI in association with Centre of Global Management and Responsible Leadership (CGMRL) organised X-TEND 2014 –  the maiden leadership conclave of XLRI and the flagship event of the XLRI Leadership Series on 17th April 2014 at the XLRI, Jamshedpur campus. The event is an initiative of the one year MBA (PGDM-GM) class at XLRI.

The inaugural X-TEND explored a pertinent topic: Designing Future-ready Organizations. The conclave explored the strategies companies can adopt to create organisations that stay relevant and adapt with time.

The speaker panel comprised of eminent industry leaders and included Mr. Arup Datta – Technical Director, KPMG, Mr Ritesh Ghosal – Head-Brand Marketing, Tata Teleservices, Ms Sujitha Karnad – Group HR, Mahindra & Mahindra, Fr Oswald Marcarenhas – JRD Tata Chair in Business Ethics at XLRI among others along with the moderator Dr Jitendra Singh – Chairperson, International Relations, XLRI.

Fr. Abraham, Director, XLRI inaugurated the event. He explained the importance of the external environment by sharing how one can study a pond and understand the frog that lives there. He explained that one needs to understand the external environment first in order to understand the organisation in its totality and then one can attempt to make the organisation future ready.

The discussion began with Dr.Singh making an insightful observation: “Being good today would not guarantee success tomorrow. The organisation should evolve with the changes happening in the external environment”. Quoting Jack Welch, the renowned leader of General Electric (GE), Dr.singh emphasized that the rate of internal changes in the organization should at least keep pace or exceed the rate of changes happening externally.

The rate of internal changes in the organization should at least keep pace or exceed the rate of changes happening externally – Dr. Jitendera Singh

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Mr.Ghosal said it is important to sync the value proposition of the consumer with that of the organization. He emphasized the need for having real-time or near real-time listening mechanisms to capture what customers are saying and to create a learning organization.

There is a need for real-time or near real-time listening mechanisms to capture what customers are saying – Ritesh Ghosal

Ms.Karnad provided an HR perspective to the discussion when she said “Focus on the workforce. It must be increasingly global, have generational diversity and should be a contributing part of large teams.” Ms.Karnad acknowledged the rise in entrepreneurship and disruptive innovations by start-ups. She said that the HR fraternity should be empowered to create a platform to groom entrepreneurship in the organization.

The HR fraternity should be empowered to create a platform to groom entrepreneurship in the organization – Sujitha Karnad

Post this Dr Singh invited Fr Oswald Marcarenhas to share his views from an academician’s perspective. Fr Oswald said that to be ready for the future, organisations should be “Creative, Innovative, Imaginative and Intuitive”.

Referring to current organizations as version 2.0 and the future ones as ‘Organization 3.0’, Mr. Datta said it is critical for organizations to be agile and flexible. He also mentioned that in future organisations “problems will be so complex that organizations and consultants have to constantly collaborate.” Envisioning the future, he talked of the advent of ‘super specialization’ – a situation in which individuals focus on gaining expertise in micro areas within a function.

Following this, the panel discussion was opened to the students of PGDM (GM) and the students interacted with the industry stalwarts. After this Dr. Singh concluded the panel discussion by saying that while the environment keeps changing at a very fast pace and in an unexpected manner, many organisations, because of their large size and the glory they have enjoyed in the past, want to remain the same and be rooted in the current position. Caught in the inertia of moving from the past into the future, they fail to see the risks inherent in this approach.