Five effective strategies to help evolve your business

During his 40-year (and counting) career, Harsh C Mariwala transformed a traditional commoditydriven business into a leading consumer products company Marico.

He has also established the Marico Innovation Foundation to fuel innovation in India and a mentoring organisation (ASCENT) to help budding entrepreneurs learn from one another through idea exchange, experience and insight.

Mariwala shares five essential practices to support leaders looking to grow their business by changing their strategy but not their vision:

Navigating the vagaries of family business

Ensure the stakeholders, especially the owners of your company, are aligned with the business growth plan and how it should be managed during the journey.

Attracting high quality talent

If you have limited resources and big aspirations, you are forced to think differently and that’s when innovation happens. Creating an impactful and innovative ad campaign will make you stand out and attract talent.

Turning values into culture

Share your values with your teams and ask them to share ideas. If managers own their values, it will eventually create a culture in the organisation. A strong culture is impossible to copy.

Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer

If someone says your idea cannot work, test it again. Innovation is not simply creativity; it is a lot of execution.

Copycats

When your idea works, copycats will come along and try to acquire the market share. Instead of becoming redundant, collaborate and innovate again.