What Every Leadership Team Can Borrow from Private Equity - - PE funds are, by design, performance machines. Every rupee deployed carries a return profile, a timeline, a value thesis. But look more closely at how the best PE firms run their portfolio companies, and something more interesting emerges — a discipline that sits at the intersection of rigour and patience, accountability and genuine support. The more interesting question is not whether PE-backed businesses outperfo

-- What do I mean when I state the above? To me, it's about two different perspectives towards achieving organisational performance. War for Talent : Leaders and organisations believe that to win in the environment in which they compete, the key is to hire top talent by attracting the best and the brightest. The view is that the Talent pool is limited and that there is a “war for talent”. The phrase “ War for Talent” was coined by McKinsey in 1997, extolling business leaders

-- Gender marketing, at its simplest, is how brands design, position, and communicate products based on gender assumptions. For decades in India, this meant clear binaries: men in authority, women in kitchens; men as decision-makers, women as caregivers. Advertising narratives reflected the social order of their time, when economic and social roles were relatively rigid. That approach worked when those roles were predictable. But India is no longer that economy. Today, women

How leading retailers are redesigning customer experiences, supply chains, and stores around intelligence. -- Introduction A I is the most transformative technology shift that we’ve seen in our lifetime. Many jobs that we’ve thrown human beings at over the last 20 or 30 years, you won’t need as many human beings doing those same jobs.”- Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon The signals are no longer subtle. Jack Dorsey's Block announced plans to cut roughly 4,000 employees — nearly half it

-- The CMO role is evolving, from brand-only to growth and content leadership. Learn what’s changing, why storytelling matters, and what defines the modern CMO. Over the past few months, I’ve been noticing how quickly marketing is evolving. Today, more than $1 trillion  is spent on marketing globally, and nearly 70% of that spend is now digital . Brands are investing more in digital channels, content has truly become king, and there are now countless free or low-cost ways to

-- As leaders, what is our primary responsibility? Growth? Performance? Delivering results? But in a world defined by AI & technological disruption, shifting business models, and changing workforce expectations, one could argue that mere performance is no longer enough. I guess the real job of leadership today is simpler—and perhaps harder: build teams that know how to learn. Because skills expire. Strategies shift. Only learning endures. Yet despite lakhs spent on training,

-- Global trade is undergoing a fundamental reset. While the tariff issue is still relevant, it is no longer the primary determinant of market access. Today, credibility on sustainability determines who supplies, who scales, and who is trusted over the long term.   Given this shift, Indian companies can benefit from it by treating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) as a lever for global competitiveness.  This is already visible in the trade agreements that our compan

- - The post-COVID business environment has ushered in what many commentators describe as a “polycrisis” world—one characterised by the simultaneous occurrence of multiple, interlinked disruptions. Social instability, economic uncertainty, climate events, and geopolitical tensions no longer appear as isolated shocks. Instead, they emerge in clusters, compounding complexity and demanding immediate managerial attention. Recent global developments illustrate this clearly. In Apr

-- Leadership is often inferred from roles, résumés, and results. Yet its true quality becomes visible only when circumstances remove predictability. This reflection explores why mentoring matters before that moment arrives. Leadership is often described in terms of competence, capability, or experience. Yet many of us intuitively recognise that leadership is something more elusive—embedded, situational, and often invisible until it is tested. It is like culture, any number o

Are Longer Working-Hours Reforms Sliding into Worker Fatigue? - - Several states are advancing labour-law reforms to relax daily working-hour caps and raise overtime limits for certain sectors. Governments and employers promote these changes as steps toward greater flexibility, competitiveness (China+1), and ease of doing business. However, this push has ignited sharp criticism over the overshadowed consequences-escalating fatigue, health hazards, safety risks, and the erosio

Clarity Amid Chaos --   “Artificial intelligence is the most consequential technological development in human history. The world has so far seen only the tip of the iceberg of its possibilities”- Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd. Retail leaders today are not short on ambition when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). They are short on clarity. Across boardrooms and executive committees, AI dominates agendas with a sense of inevitability and unease. Budget

A practical guide for professionals — and the managers who support them - - Most of us are told we should “have a development plan.” Performance management systems force us to put something! Too often, development plans become lists of training programs, generic competencies are ticked - annual HR paperwork that quietly dies after the appraisal cycle. Real development doesn’t work that way. Unfortunately, few are shown how to build a development plan that actually accelerates

The workplace of today moves at unprecedented speed. Technology advances daily, market dynamics shift rapidly, and the knowledge that made us experts yesterday may become obsolete tomorrow. The traditional model of knowledge flowing downward from senior to junior employees is not just outdated—it's counterproductive. The future belongs to organizations that harness collective intelligence and create fluid exchanges of expertise across all levels. The Cost of Knowledge Hoardin

What the rise of contract labour reveals about the health of India’s factories — and the future of India Inc. The latest Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) for 2023–24 carries a statistic that should stop every business leader in their tracks: 42% of the workforce in India’s organised manufacturing sector is now on contract. This is the highest level ever recorded — and it’s a number that will almost certainly grow in the years ahead. Yet, despite its significance, this govern

The streaks of grey in my unshaven face made me smile. A voice within bantered with me. It said, "Those whites are reminders of a lifetime you spent in the corporate world. Tell me what you have learned." If there's one learning I am sure about, it's this — real progress begins with openness. Fresh ideas are born in unexpected places. Progress happens when we listen more, judge less. This mindset creates fairer systems, knowledge flow, and collective success. In today's inter

-- Scaling an organization is often romanticized as a thrilling ascent—more customers, more revenue, more impact. But beneath the surface lies a complex web of tensions, trade-offs, and transformation. Leaders navigating this terrain must do more than manage growth—they must evolve the very DNA of their organizations while preserving what made them successful in the first place. First, what is scaling and how different is it from growth? Two of entrepreneurs’ favourite topics

Developing future leaders is a priority for most organizations. In fact, almost every competency framework includes “developing subordinates,” “building successors,” or “nurturing the next generation of leaders.” Leaders at every level emphasize its importance, and companies invest significantly in leadership development efforts. These investments usually include defining leadership competency models, running assessment centers to identify high potentials, partnering with con

Lessons from Seven Decades -- Introduction "Nobody knows what strategy is."  – The Economist Few concepts in business are as widely discussed yet as poorly understood as strategy. In countless boardrooms, classrooms, and executive off-sites, the word is used to mean everything from setting goals and writing mission statements to launching marketing campaigns and cutting costs. No wonder when you ask a group of executives “What is strategy?” , the answers range wildly. For som

In high-powered organizations, one lesson shines above all: rule number one—protect the boss’s ego. Disagree you may, but disagree gently. Words must be weighed like gold, and always leave space for the boss’s decision to stand as final. We like to believe that careers are built on talent and hard work. Yet often, they are shaped by the temperament of the person we report to. Employees do not leave organizations; they leave their bosses. And bosses can wound in many ways—the

I’ve always had a strong personal interest in loyalty programs—probably because my journey into the world of analytics began with them....