[cycloneslider id=”indian-executives”]

 

“Innovate continuously or prepare allowing your business to die.” – 9th Global Advancement Management Program, All India Management Association (AIMA)

Leading Indian executives visited Berkeley Haas on July 6 to kickstart AIMA’s ninth Global Advancement Management Program — an annual program that teaches Open Innovation and disruptive innovative business model solutions. The Senior Executives of Indian multinationals toured dominant Silicon Valley companies. Simultaneously, US companies benefitted from studying and understanding the expansion and evolution of Indian business models (companies included TATA — a multibillion dollar manufacturing enterprise, Apollo Hospitals and Fortis Healthcare — two of the largest hospital groups in Asia, and State Bank of India and ICICI Bank — two of the largest banks in India – see agenda for full details).

Host, Professor Solomon Darwin, Executive Director, Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at Berkeley Haas, takes pride in giving back to his home country of India and enjoys donating his time to teach Indian Executives about Open Innovation. He hopes to further the growth of his homeland and has gladly hosted this program annually for the past three years.

“The past three years, I have volunteered my time to the international business community. I am passionate about giving back to the community and am truly honored to have hosted this program.” – Professor Solomon Darwin, Executive Director, Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation

The Open Innovation executive program highlighted opportunities for profitable growth, and rapid global economic trends. Sessions included concepts and tools for best business practices on global economic developments, sustainability, and innovative business models. From keynote speakers and panel discussions to executive briefings at top Silicon Valley companies, participants actively engaged in creative problem-solving exercises and relevant topics such as The Case for Open Innovation and Emerging New Business Opportunities in India.

Gangadhar Udayan Dravid, Vice President New Business Venture at Fortis Healthcare Ltd., shared his thoughts on the program: ”The key takeaway is the need for free exchange of ideas and an open environment is critical for fostering innovation. The sessions are extremely informative and thought-provoking.”

Executives learned from a multitude of inspirational and innovative leaders at on-site visits to Standard Chartered Bank, Wells Fargo, Intel, Google, Stanford Medical Center, Cisco, IBM, PayPal, and TechShop (see attached agenda), attendees left exhilarated at their newfound knowledge and insights, prepared to openly collaborate, innovate, and capture value in India’s exponentially growing market. Project deliverables pinpointed Open Innovation barriers in culture, leadership, and organizational structure. At the end of the program, Indian executives incorporated disruptive innovative business models to propose back to their firms.

Nagaraja Shivaram, Senior Vice President at Brigade Enterprises Ltd., sums up the unanimous feeling of the executive programming in the following quote:

“In a highly competitive business landscape, in order to stay ahead and be relevant companies need to be not only strong, not only most intelligent, but needs to be agile and adaptable to change. This is possible only if companies are continuously innovative and capable of achieving disruptive innovation.

 

The programme on Disruptive Innovation was very well conducted, well conceived and coordinated and above all very well executed…We had an opportunity to meet the top management of these companies and interact and get to know the challenges and the way innovation is practiced/implemented in these companies. The occasion provided to hear experts talk from successful entrepreneurs was all the more interesting in addition to being interactive too.

 

On the whole it was an enriching experience...I would like to sincerely thank you for being the guiding spirit and taking us through the world of Innovation. Your vision, articulation, perspective was refreshing, thoughtful and gave us the much needed food for thought and all the more inspired and motivated too.

Thank you AIMA for organizing this educational trip to the Silicon Valley each year! On behalf of Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation and Professor Darwin, we are greatly honored to have hosted this event on leadership in Open Innovation to such prominent and forward-moving leaders.


The management program’s sponsor, AIMA, is India’s apex body of the management profession, a nonprofit that truly leverages Open Innovation and embodies the Triple Helix Model in their triadic relationship between academic, government, and enterprise.

 

By: Cindy Ma