What is a social enterprise? With multiple forms of incorporation, complex objectives and firms claiming to be or perceived as social enterprises, we have used the Sankara philosophy of Neti Neti (not this, not that) to describe a social enterprise. In Aravind Eyecare, we found the answer &mdash; Idam Ittham (this is it).

Ways of seeing

Business Standard

Champions are the ones that have survived the test of time, continued to score and outperformed market perceptions. They select themselves. Nobody questions why they are on the list. If the sieve is fine, the finest pass through the filter. Once we get these 23 corporations, we see what is common among them &mdash; that they survived so long and did so well. And retrofit an explanation of excellence. This is what Peters and Waterman did, and Jim Collins too.

How to fix a champion

The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, (IIMA) celebrated a somewhat low-key golden jubilee in December 2011. Three books on the making of the institution came out during the year. The first, Nurturing Institutional Excellence, was a collection of essays written by past and present faculty members and, given that it was written by a diverse set of people with differing styles and perspectives, it provided an anecdotal look at the institute. This was followed by a book written by T T Ram Mohan, Brick by Red Brick, which examined the history of IIMA, but largely from the lens of the first full-time director, Ravi Matthai.

M S Sriram

M S Sriram

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Ways of seeing

How to fix a champion

Strictly objective