Dr. C. S Venkata Ratnam, Director, IMI, welcomed Prof Lehmann and expressed pride that he had chosen IMI as a platform to speak to the leaders of tomorrow. ‘Meeting aspiring future global leaders is the singular reason that he has traveled all the way from Lausanne to IMI Delhi’, stated the Director in his introductory remarks.
Prof. Lehmann began by approximately quoting from Charles Dickens’ “Classic Tale of Two Cities: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times……………it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us”. And so it is with most countries today, he said. It depends upon where in the country you look. The share of OECD in world GDP has shrunk and technology is moving faster than institutions. He criticized institutions like the WTO as being static. The dominance of the global economy by US & China – or “Chimerica” as he stated could be conceptualized as consisting of two parts – Western and Eastern Chimerica. The former represents the spend and consume part, while the latter, the save and produce part. The two “Chimericas”, thus share a symbiotic relationship. The world had never seen such a long period of extended growth and low inflation. It’s a huge opportunity. The opportunity however, needs to be exploited and the advice he offered future managers was simple yet powerful.
According to Prof. Lehmann, to do well in a global era, managers need to strengthen themselves in four key areas – “The first important aspect is to acquire business related skills in finance, strategy, operations, etc. Secondly, they should have global knowledge, i.e. understanding of the global environment and the changing trends. Managers also need to be ethical the finally they must demonstrate committed citizenship, which is important to fulfill their role as socially responsible managers.”
Globalization has brought in many challenges for Indian businesses. “The biggest challenge is global competition. There is very intense competition where organizations need varied professional skills,” said Prof Lehmann. Describing competition as an opportunity, he said, “Competition should be looked upon as a positive and healthy trend for growth.”