Harsh Shrivastava's CHASS presentation on September 25,2012

PRESENTATION TO
“THE HUMAN DIMENSION”
BY
HARSH SHRIVASTAVA
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012
People AND Profits?
How can HASS Help?
November 8, 2015The Human Dimension: Inaugural CHASS Forum
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After lunch blues? A FANTHASSTIC session!
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Finding
A
New
Track for
Humanities
Arts
Social
Sciences
To achieve
International
Cooperation

Profit: the one, true path!
3
 Business drives everything.
 Government also supports business
 Productivity Commission
 AusTrade offices
 COAG debates
 Academic support:
 B-schools and law schools
 Science seems to be also subordinated to this goal
 Medicine, chemistry, biology

HASS: Harry Potter before Hogwarts
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 Unbalanced: HASS
 Unfunded.
 So far: unconcerned.
 Although the presence of the Minister AND the Shadow
Minister is good.
 Seemingly unlinked from the daily concerns of the
Footy fans or Herald Sun readers.
 The Wizards of HASS vs. the Muggles of Money

Further behind in other countries
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 India
 350,000 MBAs; far fewer historians, anthroplogists, social
scientists. Students give these up for “safer” government jobs.
 Cambridge HASS conference in India: First session
 Delhi’s new HASS university
 Singapore and HK: all business, all the time
 Qatar, by emphasizing the A of HASS is different.
 Latin America: literature, but what else?
 Africa: anthropology …
Is HASS a luxury, only for the rich (34 OECD countries)?

But other countries are bigger, faster
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 34 OECD countries have a 2010 population of 1.25
billion and GNP of 42 trillion USD
 BRIICS alone have a population of close to 3 billion
and a GNP of 18 trillion USD.
 More importantly, these countries are growing much
faster. (2010 OECD, 3.8; China 10.4, India 8.4,
Indonesia 6.1)

Yet businesses struggle in these countries
7
 It is difficult to do business in:
 Africa
 Brazil
 China
 India
 Indonesia
 Russia
 … is the common complaint of all CEOs!
Q: What are MNCs missing in these markets …

People: the missing link
8
A: The Human Dimension
Consumers are people first ...
As they get richer, their complex human dimensions
are increasingly important.
To paraphrase Thomas Friedman …
I might buy your Lexus, but first you’d better understand
my olive tree!

One Lexus, but many olive trees
9
 What was the history of this olive tree?
 Of other olive trees?
 Of other olive groves?
 How does the olive tree define my life?
 In plays, poetry, and prose?
 What did women have to do with this olive tree?
 Or immigrants?
 Will my kids’ “Olive App” for their tablets, be enough
to explain this tree’s importance?

Need ALL the HASS to sell more
10
 Markets are big, but they are also diverse.
 Income is no longer the only criteria.
 People consume products or services for different reasons.
 All the disciplines
have a business angle.
 Cellphones are a good example

iPhone 5 vs. Galaxy S3
11
 After all the patent wars are over, these two iconic
phones still need to be sold—round the world to
people who already own a phone.
 Apple and Samsung are not selling them only on
their tech specs, but on many other “human” criteria.
 Many of the HASS disciplines used as inputs in the design
and the promotion of these phones and cloud services.
 Galaxy S3: “Designed for Humans” …
 … as if they knew about “The Human Dimension”!
 Nokia, Blackberry: engineering, business doesn’t sell.

The HASS Imperative for Australia Inc. #1
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 It’s not only minerals that you export, but also
movies, museums, marketing services, apart from
motorcars and manufactured widgets.
 High-end services like consulting (2.8 bn),
architecture, tourism, and even education (15 bn)
need a more holistic and far deeper understanding
of your foreign customers and potential customers.
 Your competition is already doing this:
 Hollywood, Hyundai, and Huawei

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 Understanding foreigners is good; understanding
your fellow citizens who have come from across the
globe to become Australians is better.
 Sandridge Bridge in Melbourne is a great example of how
HASS can help bring the world to our workday lives.
 Understanding the cultures, crafts, cuisines, cities of
these 128 (and counting) countries is a good way to
sell to an increasingly affluent middle-class.
 Westpac’s win in the Indian immigrants’ market depends
on how it uses HASS; else it will leave this big
demographic to our ICICI Bank.

14
 Marketing departments need to work with HASS to
sell more.
 But HR departments also need to “deploy” HASS to
get the most out of their multi-cultural workplaces.
 Eg. Speakers at this conference; the staff of CHASS.
 If we don’t understand where we’re coming from
(historically, culturally, geographically), how can we
walk together to reach our organization’s goals.
 And individual goals too!
 http://wadhwa.com/2012/05/17/washington-post-why-
silicon-valley-needs-humanities-students/

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 Business usually reacts to government and policies
 Business lobbying to government is linked to
economics, but politics, often trumps economics.
 Politics is shaped by humans and our concerns.
 If business worked with the HASS communities, it
can help shape the government’s agenda.
 Mining is a good example of how “whining” doesn’t work.

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 The world is changing at a faster rate—is a truism.
 But individuals and the collective society and nations
and the globe are also changing.
 HASS can help make sense of this accelerating
change—and point to the future.
 Will the Arab Spring mean new markets—for what?
 How will rising nationalism in China play out—and what
will this mean for Korea and Japan
 What will multiculturalism look like five years hence?

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 Super funds and insurance funds are big (nearly $2
trillion).
 They are looking for stable, long-term investments.
 Economic forecasting is not enough to get the best
returns.
 HASS disciplines can help better predict Australia
and the world’s future.
 Will China be a democracy in fifteen years?
 How will Australians react if the mining moolah ends?
 Is gay marriage foreseeable? What’s the business impact?

Startups: HASS more valuable than MBA
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 Previous five slides—big companies.
 HASS can help startup
 Most are in urban services
 Widgets are all from China
 Restaurants—what do people like to eat (culture).
 Hardrock—new gym driven by adventure (TV)
 Festivals—understand human curiosity
 Floriade in Canberra
 Mural festival of Sheffield, Tasmania

People AND Policies: How HASS can help
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 Rising prosperity is making more people concerned
about their culture; making it more difficult to sell
anything more than just “stuff”.
 Similarly, rising democracy (including information) is
making it more easy for people to resist policies that may
be economically correct, but don’t appeal to their human
concerns.
 In both cases, HASS can help

HASS for international cooperation
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Australia’s HASS system can help promote Australia’s
soft power in three ways.
 Help other countries replicate the institutional
structure:
 CHASS Philippines; CHASS Vietnam; CHASS Iraq
 Make AusAID more effective.
 Australia can host many cross-country HASS
dialogues—involving its immigrants.
 India and Pakistan; Thailand and Cambodia;
 Israel and Palestine?

Wizards WITH Muggles: HASS and the All Ords
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 Next year’s conference:
 Delegates from the 25/500 companies that comprise the
Sydney All Ordinaries Index.
 3/38 speakers from companies.
 Sessions on the “What” and the “How” of how HASS can
work more with business (and not the other way around).
 Learn from the relative success of the Arts.
HASS

HARSH.EMAIL@GMAIL.COM
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Harsh Shrivastava's CHASS presentation on September 25,2012

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