FLAME Masterclass Series

Prof. Uniyal, using short stories, takes participants across the streets of countries and brings out unique business models and practices. From vendors to million-dollar street enterprises, Prof. Uniyal weaves interesting learnings across areas like customer service and management, leadership, and personal growth.

The strategy is the first to be killed during a crisis'. How do you course correct despite the uncertainties that a crisis brings about? Using stories of companies that thrived despite the crisis, Prof. Mankad provides pointers on how strategy can still survive despite the crisis.

The innovation process in most startups and established firms remain a closed, guarded secret. An emerging school of corporate strategy challenges this view. In this lecture, we discuss the following: Corporate Innovation, Sources of Innovation, Types of Innovation, Open Innovation vs Closed innovation, Adopting Open Innovation.

With zero or reduced revenues for most businesses and uncertainty all around, effectuation is an effective decision-making framework for leaders to co-create and rebuild the business. Effectuation, researched, and coined by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy from Darden School of Business, enables leaders and entrepreneurs to use existing resources to create value.

Recently the attention of academics and practitioners has shifted towards the process of nurturing corporate entrepreneurship and means of maximizing benefits from corporate entrepreneurship. In order to reap the benefits of the young demographics, entrepreneurship today also means that organizations being able to tap into the coming younger generation, their mind-set, energy and drive to achieve, as they are the most technically knowledgeable people which help them to respond well to challenges. Indian organizations have started to implement the culture of corporate entrepreneurship. The basic thesis of this course is to introduce the participants with what is corporate entrepreneurship, the benefits, and the challenges of the same and make them find out whether their organization is ready for corporate entrepreneurship.

Is your organization ready to use analytics? What does it take to make the HR function more data-driven? Using experience gained from their team's research with several HR functions, Prof. Mankad and Prof. Batra outline building blocks and processes of a data-driven HR function.

Retail executives all over India are currently busy focusing on navigating the crisis mode for their businesses, thinking long and hard about the recovery mode and developing/implementing appropriate action plan to jump start the business. Even before India was hit by a corona virus outbreak, retail industry was going through a ‘rough patch’ due to weak consumer demand, rising input and other costs leading to tighter profitability. But now the outlook for the retail industry is looking much bleaker with significant short, medium and long term impact on sales, margins, returns and market share. For Indian retail industry, according to various forecasts, the contraction could be between 20 and 60% in 2020 and positive growth of between 4 and 10% in 2021 (compared to the baseline of 2019). For many, their planned strategies for the remainder of 2020 will become redundant. For a few, it will be a fight for survival. For others, including those who are part of a large conglomerate, many will ‘wade through’ this crisis but will be left severely battered and bruised.

In order to compete today, CEOs and business leaders need evolutionary skills that will ensure the survival of their businesses in a fast-changing climate. Business fitness now means learning, if not entirely new, how to be agile, resilient and creative. It means adapting to the marketplace in quick generational cycles. That requires a brave new brand of leadership, and from my vantage point, as Nihilent works alongside companies young and old from around the globe, it requires being able to think like a business designer. The hour-long design thinking masterclass titled ‘Holistic Design for Digital Innovation’ seeks to enable business leaders to shift the purpose of an organization made for today to an organization fit for tomorrow. This session will help build an appreciation for the emergent role and strength of design, drawing a fine balance:

Organizations constantly have to reinvent themselves due to the demands of a dynamically changing environment. The process of adaptation involves employing new HR policies and processes, but how do we know whether they really work? We answer this question by discussing the role of research techniques in improving employee performance.

Jubilant Foods Limited, the South Asian Master Franchise for Domino’s Pizza and Dunkin’ Donuts has witnessed a major turnaround in 2018-19. In this session, Mr. Pratik Pota, CEO and Wholetime Director, Jubilant Foods Limited, speaks about the strategies for this turnaround and some learning that can be applied by leaders of businesses. Pratik will also discuss the manner in which they are dealing with the current Covid crisis.