Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
What is your outlook for the global economy in 2011?
When I look ahead to 2011, for the first time, I see a ray of hope of economic
recovery, increased liquidity, and hopefully more jobs.
What concerns me most is the economic recovery with the jobless.
We need to bring innovation to the center stage of our investments so that economic
recovery actually especially in developed economies creates new jobs so that the
economic recovery is not just felt in GDP growth rate and numbers of the country but
also in the kitchens and houses of every single colleague of ours across the world.
The world in 2011 is exceedingly complex, interconnected, and unpredictable.
How can organizations develop resilience in this new world of risk?
For some, increasing complexity and unpredictability is a threat.
For some like me, it is an opportunity.
It is an indication of formation of a new normal.
It is an indication that the world is now henceforth going to behave in a completely
different form. With emerging markets, new populations,
demographic profile changes are going to drive increased uncertainty
and unpredictability and complexity in our businesses.
And that would be the management challenge in front of all business leaders and all
country leaders, is how to handle this diversity and this complexity and convert
the threat into an opportunity.
And I think it can be done and that will define the winners of tomorrow.
As global growth shifts to the developing world, what should be the role of business
in developing countries?
Developing countries is our hope.
The growth in economic activities would come with increased consumption in the
developing countries.
At the same time, there is a responsibility of responsible consumption
and a responsible global participation in the global growth in economy.
I truly believe that leveraging the global economy and the emerging markets
is going to take a huge amount of innovation.
The new rules will have to be defined and how we make the growth in developing
countries impact the growth in developed countries.
The complex worldwide web of interconnected businesses are truly going
to get tested in the next decade, and innovation coming from developing
countries will significantly impact the price of service delivery in developed
countries and also the way that consumption happens in developed
countries. So it is not just about developing
countries but also the opportunities which the developed countries offer for
businesses in the developing countries, which will be interesting countries to
watch in the coming decade.
What would you consider the most important norms that an increasingly interdependent
yet diverse world needs to share?
We live in one world.
The political boundaries of the geographies are far, giving way to the
worldwide web.
In one world, it is important to have shared beliefs, shared values, and shared
norms.
If I were to think of four important such values which we as a world need to think
and invest and believe in, I would say the first would be the aspect of creating
trust. I believe unless there is trust in the
relationship within families, within organizations, between employees
and business leaders, and between political leaders and the citizens, the soil is not
ready for any transformation, which is critical for our success.
And therefore, the first belief we need to have is investment in creating trusted
relationship and partnership.
How do you create that? And that brings me to a second belief
system, by pushing the envelope of transparency.
I truly believe by sharing more and being more transparent and accountable to
everybody, we would create that trusted partnership which is critical,
and therefore, belief in the value system of transparency is going to be the second
aspect we need to invest in. Third, I would believe, is tolerance.
Tolerance for political views, for religious views.
Yes, we are one world but we are a big world and therefore, multiple people will
have multiple views.
The ability to carry everybody along with us towards the same development agenda so
that we leave this world as a better place compared to how we came in would be the
important aspect of tolerance.
And lastly, what I believe the most important is the philosophy and the value
of people first. Yes, economic recovery, economic agenda,
economic growth and creating wealth for ourselves, our countries, and our
businesses is critical for our success, but we must understand we are a group of
billions of people in this world who co-exist and therefore, mutual benefit
and carrying everybody along this economic development agenda is a very critical
value system we all need to believe in. And therefore, people first would be the
fourth value system I would say that the world needs.
In the end, it's the common belief in norms and beliefs like these which will
make us look like a homogenous society which is working towards common goal of
everybody, which is my dream for tomorrow.
How can companies turn sustainability into a competitive advantage?
Sustainability has been the center of many conversations today.
Unfortunately, it is in the periphery of many actions and not in the center.
And therefore, the progress we have made on sustainability is very limited, if any.
And it's quite understandable, given the fact that developing countries' agenda
is on development, and developed countries are not opening their purse string in
sharing technology with the developing countries to help them grow responsibly
and at the same time in a cost-effective fashion.
I can understand the conflict which we have on our respective points of view on
sustainability, but I wonder how would we unlock the lock jam we face in the world
today. And one of the ways we believe and we are
thinking about is trying to bring sustainability as a competitive agenda to
the business.
I think more and more companies are launching on the competitive
differentiation between themselves and their competitors based on the way they
address the sustainability issue and be seen as responsible and responsive
business communities compared to their competitors.
It's only innovation agenda driven on sustainability within the businesses which
has an ability to unlocking the lock jam we see between the worlds today.
So that sustainability can make our world better tomorrow compared to what it
is today.