Staff Reporter | 09 May, 2008
While noting that the key to becoming a leader in the world must begin by creating a shared commitment to aspirations supported by creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, Prof C K Prahlad said, India must become a source of global innovations - new businesses, new technologies and new business models, the early evidence of which is already in.

"The key to becoming a leader in the world must begin by creating a shared commitment to aspirations supported by creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship....Increasingly India is becoming home for new business models - very low capital intensity, extremely low fixed costs, and conversion of fixed costs into variable costs. The bottom of the pyramid, the 800 million Indians, can become a major source of breakthrough innovations."

Prof C K Prahlad, Paul & Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor, Ross School of Business, The University of Michigan said this in his lecture in a seminar 'India@75 a vision' organised by CII recently.

Dwelling on his core principles for achieving India's goal of being a socio-economic power, he stressed on the fact that the goal can be realised if a "balance between aspirations and the resources" is maintained.  

"I know that many would say that the potential of India@75 cannot be realized because we do not have the resources. I remember seven years ago I suggested a target of 10% growth. Many in India, including some very senior and extremely knowledgeable bureaucrats said that we don’t have resources for 10% growth. The issue is not resources but the balance between aspirations and the resources."

On the essence of entrepreneurial transformation, Prahlad noted that aspirations and resources create innovations and entrepreneurial energy and India must have high and shared aspirations in order to take the country forward.

"Every entrepreneur who is in this room knows that it is the conscious misfit between aspirations and resources that creates innovations and entrepreneurial energy. As a country, India must have high and shared aspirations."

He however observed that India lacks a shared aspiration to take the country forward and without a major paradigm shift, this can be a major dampener in India's growth story.  

"The last time she (India) had a shared aspiration as a country was in 1929 when the leaders of the then Congress party declared their ambition as Poorna Swaraj.  Since then, India has never had a national aspiration which every Indian could share."

"A shared aspiration is fundamental for changing India. There are only two ways to realize an aspiration that is greater than available resources. One is to leverage resources - get more for every person and every rupee that you spend.  Alternatively one could change the game, and change it to your advantage," he said.

Asking entrepreneurs not to focus solely on best practices, he said, "see a new pattern of opportunity and have the courage to pursue them."

"If everybody benchmarks everybody else we will gravitate towards mediocrity. So I suggest a focus on next practices. That means we have to amplify weak signals, see a new pattern of opportunity and have the courage to pursue them," he added.