The Hindu : National : India needs more Fortune 500 companies, says President

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 22, 2006

National

National

India needs more Fortune 500 companies, says President

Special Correspondent

Spells out the mantra, identifying ``righteousness in life'' and ``possessing an indomitable'' spirit as the ingredients for making it big

— PHOTO: PTI

HONOURED: President Abdul Kalam presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to V. Krishnamurthy, chairman, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam on Tuesday called for building brand institutions and asked more Indian companies to storm into the Fortune 500 list in a big way.

Inaugurating the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the All-India Management Association here, Mr. Kalam spelt out the mantra, identifying ``righteousness in life'' and ``possessing an indomitable'' spirit as the two key ingredients for making it big and emerging as a great corporate or a brand institution.

``We need to create brand institutions. In the Fortune 500 companies, 5 are Indian, while 15 are from China though we have a similar kind of population,'' Mr. Kalam said. He spelt out the substance of his speech in seven minutes rather than reading it out for 20 minutes and interacted with those attending the function.

It turned out to be a two-way discourse with the audience adding to his definition of ``unique qualities of creative leadership", which, he emphasised, was vital brand building. In keeping with his penchant for pledges, he administered two — one to the management professionals and others and the second to the students — for adhering to ethics and promoting innovation. He quoted couplets from Tamil poems to support his observations.

Earlier, he conferred the AIMA's Life Time Achievement Award for Management on V. Krishnamurthy, Chairman, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council. Mr. Krishnamurthy was hailed as `Bhishampitama' of professional management and author of the auto revolution in the country.

Three other awards too were presented on the occasion. While Public Service Excellence Award was conferred K. J. Rao, Adviser, Election Commission of India for conduct of free and fair elections in Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar, K. V. Kamath, Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank was honoured in absentia with the prestigious Tata Corporate Leadership Award for his vision and zeal in serving the financial sector to help the country emerge as an economic power of the future. Sri Biotech, Hyderabad, was presented the AIMA Dr. J. S. Juneja Award for Creativity and Innovation for Small Enterprises.

Mr. Kalam said brand institutions have five main components — design capability, competitiveness in the contemporary market, organisational transformation or continual innovation, success or failure management and establishment of institutional ethical standards.

"We have a few brand institutions in the country in the government and private sector and many are aspiring to become one," he said.

The design and development capability of an institution or industry is the key to acquiring the competitive edge, he said, adding that the Indian R&D team, business community and industries should recognise its importance.

In order to transform into a developed country, Mr. Kalam said a developing country such as India had to market products in a competitive way by focussing on quality of products, cost effectiveness and supply on time.

To achieve design capability and competitiveness, the President said it was necessary to effect organisational transformation or continual "innovation". He referred to his stint in the Defence Research and Development Organisation, which has been transformed into a brand institution.

Emphasising success and failure management to achieve goals, Mr. Kalam said the leader gives credit for success to those who worked for it and owns responsibility for the failure.

He also called for ethical standards by saying the quality of leadership is echoed by graduating from "you give me" to "what I can give".

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