ET Leader2Leader Forum: Inclusive growth as strategy

MUMBAI : Indian businesses need to incorporate ‘inclusive growth’ into their firms’ strategy, balancing profitability and social responsibility at the same time, panelists at the ET Leader2Leader Forum said on the second day of the Nasscom India Leadership Summit 2011 on Wednesday.

Michael L Tushman, professor , Harvard Business School, Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO & MD, Infosys Technologies , Kiran Karnik, former president, Nasscom and Michael Rogers, futurist-in-residence , The New York Times, spoke on “Aligning Profitability with Inclusive Growth,” anchored by Jerry Rao, chairman of Nasscom Foundation.

“Businesses need to focus on education and incorporating inclusion by creating affordable products that will help lift margins as well as address the aspirations of the civil society,” said Kris Gopalakrishnan. “Clearly, IT costs have come down over the years and technology like cloud and mobile can bring it down further. Businesses need to bring inclusion as part of their strategy,” he added.

Criticising the tendency of large corporations not to empower human resources in the lower rungs of talent pool, Harvard professor Michael Tushman said: “Large corporations not only need to look at inclusive growth outside but should inwards and empower talent within the organisation.” He said the challenge senior leaders will face will be to keep doing what they have been doing and at the same time bring in inclusiveness.

Citing examples of investors pulling out of companies because they flouted civil society norms, former Nasscom president Kiran Karnik argued in favour of inclusive growth. “While corporates are responsible to their shareholders, corporations that do not keep up to the expectations of the civil society will be affected in various ways,” he said. “Inclusive growth is the way to sustainable corporate growth,” he added. Michael Rogers, said: “Sometimes corporations will need to make decisions for the long-term that may not be great for the short-term . However, these decisions will have to be made.”

Even prospective employees have started looking at a company’s social responsibility specs before joining, said Jerry Rao. The panel also touched upon how corporates can draw upon ideas from the civil society and then increase inclusion within their organisation.