MUMBAI: Harvard University needs no introduction as the premier Ivy league institution in the United States with a 350-year-long tradition. The institution has always sought to excel and lead the pack. Harvard Business School (HBS) was established in 1908. The school’s MBA and doctoral programmes are considered world-class with academic units in Accounting and Management, Business, Government and the International Economy; Entrepreneurial Management, Finance, General Management, Marketing, Negotiation, Organisations and Markets; Organisational Behaviour, Strategy, and Technology and Operations Management.
Around 12 years ago, in an attempt to move from an American perspective to a truly global one and to bring to light problems and solutions on a local level to be applied elsewhere in the world, research centers were set up across the globe by HBS – in California, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Paris, India, Shanghai and Turkey — as an extension of their global initiatives. The India Center was started in Mumbai in 2006. These facilities provide a base in the respective countries from which HBS faculty members can conduct on-site research and develop teaching materials, such as the school’s renowned case studies. HBS’ India Research Center (IRC) seeks to understand and document the emerging trends that are shaping the future of India and the region — from healthcare to accounting. Through this, best practices from our country are being shared with the world.
“Our proactive role in engaging HBS faculty, sharing knowledge and best practices through research and case studies with leaders who are driving India’s growth and development, executive education programmes and making research available to anyone in the world, in short, works to bring the best of Harvard to India and take the best of India to Harvard,” says Executive Director, Anjali Raina.
In her role at the IRC, Raina focuses on building and maintaining relationships with senior business leaders in the region to facilitate the work of the IRC in research and educational programmes, community building and faculty development. Since its establishment, IRC has focused on studying our dynamic trends and traditions — from the Dabbawalas in Mumbai, Nalli Silk Sarees in Chennai and slums of Dharavi to the Jaipur foot. (www.hbs.edu/global/research/southasia/center)
“We understand that our professors can’t be experts on a region without local help. We enable them to understand the world and bring a global perspective to their classrooms. The problems are so large that global solutions require global understanding and efforts to solve them. We are driven by research to enable our faculty to have a reach in this region and facilitate the studies. We are here to identify new emerging business models, as well as global models that both work or do not work here, to become lessons to other leaders,” says Raina.
For example, the cardiac care at Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital, Bangalore, is one of the busiest in the world. The number of operations done there far exceed the number in UK in a year. So IRC attempted to study the model that emerged here. Reasons for interest in healthcare may be different across the world — in China it is to learn how to ease the strain on people in saving up for healthcare expenses, and thereby drive consumption in other sectors, whereas in the US they are looking at lowering costs of healthcare. But the issue of healthcare, like many others cannot be overlooked and this is the edge HBS IRC provides, says Raina.
Case studies
The Case Method was pioneered by HBS as a proven tool to expand leadership capabilities and expertise, as no other programme puts you face-to-face with the faculty who wrote the cases and experienced the outcomes. Out of 159 case studies from South Asia, IRC has facilitated the writing of over 54 cases on Indian business practices and supported half a dozen research projects. Raina has co-authored several case studies such as Aadhaar: India’s ‘Unique Identification’ System, TeamLease : Putting India to Work (II) Legally and Pratham – Every Child in School and Learning Well, as well as an HBR article on The Ordinary Heroes of the Taj.
Another example is the Oral History Project on global business leaders they initiated that documents on video, interviews with leaders who have made a difference to the economic and business environment of a country. In India, they have compiled interviews of Suresh Krishna (Sundram Fasteners Limited), Yusuf Hamied (Cipla Limited), Adi Godrej (Godrej Group), Keshub Mahindra (Mahindra Group), Prathap Reddy (Apollo Hospitals), Nalli Kuppuswami Chetty (Nalli Silk Sarees) and Rahul Bajaj (Bajaj Group).
“That’s the difference between the business and academic environment. Whatever we do or learn is for the good of humanity,” says Raina. “It makes classroom learning rich and vivid. Similarly, the Nalli Silks project brought to light how a saree is bought and how the buying experience is different in India, and looked at aspects of sale, inventory, customer service and experience and studied how the concept of a personal shopper emerged here. We thereby make tacit knowledge explicit.” Interestingly, this study was done by a professor of accounting who was fascinated by the system here.
IRC’s work largely translates into case studies or articles in the Harvard business review or in journals or as a chapter in a book or research project. In the process, professors travel across India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and other countries in the region.
“Our professors also speak to Indian or South Asian leaders about their research. It helps test the faculty on their knowledge by something called the Laugh Test. When they present tacit knowledge to locals, if they don’t laugh, you have done your homework well and have passed,” says Raina. So a foreigner has to understand it and a local has to think that it’s not as simple. That way, the case studies are brought back to us.
Raina echoes the beliefs of the institution when she says that information gathered must be made available free of cost for everyone to be inspired. That is the only way to inspire, learn and apply, she says (www.hbr.org/case-studies).
A team of high-powered individuals with backgrounds in engineering, management, education, development studies, English literature, law and so on, carry out research that is faculty-driven. This team is well-qualified with industry experience and works independently. “We don’t have a private agenda, but we drive cases on pertinent topics like agri business to help our agricultural productivity. The story of Amul Cooperative Model as one of value-for-money and many-is-one concepts, we believed the world should know about. So we push those stories as well,” she says.
Rachna Tahilyani is the Associate Director of Research at HBS IRC. Since joining the Center in November 2008 she has written numerous case studies with HBS faculty on subjects ranging from knowledge management to transformation of state owned enterprises. She says, “Working at IRC is a truly enriching experience since you are continuously learning something new every day.”
What this means for India
For many, while Harvard sounds like a distant and not to mention expensive dream, there are many initiatives that have been adopted through these research centers to reach out to more people. IRC’s outreach is through executive education, engagement with Indian faculty and by making research material available online, apart from offering assistance and scholarships to students who want to go to Harvard.
Executive education
HBS has also brought a curriculum that addresses Indian needs through their Executive Education programmes. IRC has run 31 executive education programmes for over 1,594 business leaders on subjects ranging from Globalising Indian Enterprises, to Agri-business and 158 lecture events covering over 10,000 leaders.
Indians who don’t have the time or money to go to Harvard can actually aspire to attend programmes run by their faculty and is always done in a Harvard business style classroom at Taj Land’s End, Mumbai. Owned by India Hotels, the classroom was designed for HBS requirements. “You don’t need a mike, instead it has been built in a way that you can stand in the pit and talk, to be heard everywhere. The temperature is controlled with sensors, lighting is bright for academic purposes, projectors are in-built, and replete with unobtrusive and hassle-free technology, designed for a truly global educational experience,” beams Raina.
Programmes for India
Taught by HBS faculty members, some of the upcoming programmes are Driving Growth through Innovation-India (August 4-7), Leadership and Corporate Accountability-India (November 17-20), Maximising your Leadership Potential-India (December 15-18), Leading Growth through Customer Centricity-India (March 2015), Building a Global Enterprise-India (April 2015) and Improving Corporate Performance and Profitability-India (May 2015).
Sairam Santharam, employed with HSBC Bank, attended the Exec Ed programme in 2012 on Aligning and Executing Strategy-India. “The course is an important step toward building the capability of Indian executives in leading businesses. Through real-life scenarios, I gained the confidence to transform challenges into opportunities. Now I am prepared to handle complex and sensitive issues related to people, processes, technology, and, most important, the customers we face on a daily basis,” he says.
HBS looks at reaching as many people as possible. “We also look at educating educationists who are making a difference in their own fields of expertise. Typically, a batch of MBA students at Harvard is around 900 students. But this is limited. India offers compelling opportunities for Indian firms and multinational companies — but increasing competition, market dynamics, and changing customer expectations can be challenging. Companies need the latest research and best practices to tailor their strategies to this market. These programmes offer a broad, in-depth exploration of how to lead organisations to success in India and beyond.”
Another participant, Bipin Cyriac, QBurst Technologies, who attended Driving Growth Through Innovation-India programme in August last year says, “Although it holds value, the certificate was not my objective. I wanted to experience HBS style of learning through deep analyses of business cases. It helped me look at business scenarios differently and gave me an opportunity to network.”
Other engagements
The Harvard Business Review is also very helpful to researchers. Now we’re working on translating it into different languages. We also realised we can educate many more if we educate business faculty and bring them up to the Harvard standard.” Once a year, HBS supports the participation of professors from premier Indian Business Schools in HBS’s Global Colloquium on Participant Centered Learning, a programme that aims to help management educators improve their effectiveness through innovative teaching and course design.
IRC also houses the Harvard University South Asia Institute, which advances teaching and research through an interfaculty initiative that brings multiple perspectives on topics related to South Asia. Harvard and HBS alumni meets are organised along with their year-long list of events. And to enable entrepreneurs to also benefit, many of their professors organise talks on entrepreneurship in this economy. At events like this, they discuss not only the good practices and models that can be applied in the Indian context, but also the pitfalls one can avoid.
While most of these activities seem limited to a niche, Raina is quick to reassure us that the Harvard dream is a lot more accessible now, and one they work on at IRC in their mission of taking India to the world and vice versa.
— preethi@newindianexpress.com