India Inc needs strategic leadership: Jan Carlzon

Indian companies must change their organisational structure to develop entities headed by leaders with strategic skills, management guru Jan Carlzon said.

"Indian business leaders must look at giving strategic leadership and take the whole company along with them in achieving their goals. They should be different from traditional managers and administrators of cost," Carlzon told Business Standard over the phone from Stockholm.

Carlzon, former president and chief executive officer of the Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) Group, will be in India during the first week of December to deliver a series of lectures organised by the Advanced Centre for Management Excellence (ACME).

During his stay in India, he is expected to deliver lectures on leadership, leadership management, strategic leadership, brand management and managing change. Carlzon will hold his lecture sessions in Delhi on December 1 and in Mumbai on December 3.

Carlzon, who will visit India for the first time, had some advice for Indian software services and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies.

According to him, rather than depending on short-term gains from just cost arbitrage, Indian companies must look at developing long-term relationships with their clients, which are based on value addition.

"The time is not far when there will be service providers offering cheaper rates than Indian companies. In that scenario, if cost is just the deciding factor, why should they come to an Indian company," he asked.

Pointing to India's advantage over China in areas like management, he said: "This advantage will be short-lived. Indian companies and management must look forward to constant innovation and growth. In China, if they set about to learn something, it is not just one person who learns, but a whole lot of them."

Carlzon is also bullish on the growth prospects of the Indian economy.

"Most of the companies that I deal with are very keen on the Indian market. They feel that if offers them a great opportunity. It can be technology, retail or any other sector," he added.

Carlzon, who helped turn around SAS in the early Eighties, said of the number of low-cost, no-frills carriers coming up in India that just cutting costs would not help them achieve growth.

"Along with cost management, the airline or any company will have to pass on the benefit to the consumers without compromising on quality. They should realise that they just do not fly aircraft, but they fly passengers. Even in a low-cost environment, the consumer is the most deciding factor," he said.

Giving an example of mobile phone makers in Europe, Carlzon said people bought phones because they were cheap and of high quality and not because of the companies that made them.