This document summarizes surveys of business leaders and CEOs about strategies for turbulent economic times. The surveys found that CEOs are most concerned about technological changes, data and analytics, and customer expectations. Business strategies are focusing on core competencies, reducing debt, outsourcing non-core functions, and using technology and data analytics. Corporates aim to become more agile, adaptive, and responsive to changes in order to improve performance and stakeholder engagement.

1. Strategy in Turbulent Times
NMIMS Industry Interaction
Seminar Mumbai
R.Kannan
Hinduja Group
16th
March 2016

2. Emerging Trends
• Global Economic Crisis of 2008 have spill over effects
• world is yet to come out of the impact of this crisis
• We are living in a VUCA world.
• The risks have increased over the years
• Predictability has become one of the challenges.
• Proven models of forecasting don’t work.
• Companies are not able to plan for long term.
• Many of the developed economies have seen their
economic growth falling.
• Oil and commodity prices have seen a big fall.
• Unemployment has reached unprecedented levels.

3. Emerging Trends
• No visible options available for kick starting the economy in
many of the leading economies in the world.
• Lower economic growth in countries led to lower trade and
lower corporate Growth
• Corporates are finding it difficult to increase the volume
demand for their products and there is a pressure on pricing.
• Risks have become multi fold in the last few years and they
are arising from various directions.
• There is an increased in uncertainty in Economic, Political,
Social , Technological and Environment aspects .
• This has a great bearing on performance of a corporate

4. Emerging Trends
• Growing world Population and it will be 8.3 billion People by
2030 with a Median Age increasing by 5 years to 34 years.
59% of world population will live in cities.
• Globalisation and future Markets . The globalisation of
markets will continue and exports and FDI are likely to grow
faster than GDP.
• Resources Security. Primary Energy consumption will rise by
26%.Half the world population will have water scarcity. There
will be increased food demand.
• Co2 oxide emissions will rise by 16% and Global warning will
be one of the major issues for management. Average
temperature will rise by 0.5% to 1.5% .

5. Risks
• China experiences a sharp economic slowdown
• Russia's interventions in Ukraine and Syria precede a new
"cold war" .
• Volatility culminates in an emerging markets corporate debt
crisis.
• Due to external and internal pressures, the EU begins to
fracture .
• Grexit" is followed by a euro zone break-up.
• The rising threat of Jihadi terrorism destabilises the global
economy.
• The UK votes to leave the EU.
• A collapse in investment in the oil sector prompts a future oil
price Shock

6. India CEO Survey
• 64 per cent of Indian respondents are very confident of their
growth prospects in the next 12 months as compared to 35
per cent globally.
• Indian CEO’s are preparing themselves for the technology
disruption and and the global risks arising from various
Economic, Political and other global events.
• Speed of technological change is a top concern for Indian
CEOs this year. 79 per cent of CEOs are concerned about the
influence the speed of technological change . 80 per cent of
CEOs believe that over the next five years, technological
advances will transform wider stakeholder expectations
• Exchange rate volatility concerns 80 per cent of CEOs in India
and 73 per cent of CEOs globally.

7. India CEO Survey
• Demographic shifts and change in global economic power will
transform wider stakeholder expectations.
• 63 per cent of CEOs expect that customers are seeking a mix
of cost, convenience and functionality in products/services.
• Up to 92 per cent of the CEOs in India reported that they are
changing the way they use technology to assess and deliver
on wider stakeholder expectations.
• Data and analytics lead the way, with 78 per cent of CEOs
feeling the need for it.
• Customer relationship management systems come next,
followed by research and development and innovation.

8. CII Industry Survey – Dec 15
• CII Business Confidence Index (CII- BCI) for October-December
2015 quarter stood at 53.9, up from 53.4 in the previous
quarter.
• Majority of the respondents seem unsure about the recovery
in credit growth.
• 64 per cent felt that the government’s initiatives for
Improving ease of doing business have had a 10-30% impact
at the ground-level.
• 55 per cent expect the exchange rate to range between Rs
63-67 per US dollar in 2015-16.
• 44 per cent expect improvement in both sales and new
orders.

9. CII Industry Survey
• Major share of the businesses expect capacity utilization to
remain at the 50-75%.
• Majority of the respondents anticipate no changes in raw
material, fuel and credit cost, while Salaries are expected to
increase .
• Most of the respondents expect status quo in after tax profits.
• Majority of the respondents expect no significant change in
external trade .
• Low domestic demand and lack of political consensus on
economic reforms emerge as the major concerns

10. Conclusions from Surveys
• Customers and clients are top priority. The development of
online business models have removed the scope for
differentiation .
• 90% CEO’s say Customers have the biggest impact on
strategy.
• Technology and risk management are the top areas .
• Data and analytics technologies as generating the greatest
return for stakeholder engagement.
• CEOs are most likely to change their talent strategy to focus
on their leadership pipeline.
• Business could do more to measure the impact and value of
innovation

11. Conclusion from Survey
• Business success will be defined by more than
financial profit.
• Business should be doing more to measure environmental
impact.
• major changes are made in managing brand, marketing and
communications.
• Skilled, educated and adaptable workforce should be a
priority for business.
• There is a greater alignment to the Vision and Mission .
• Corporates stick to their knitting and focus on Core
competencies .

12. Corporate Strategies
• Corporate have started focussing on areas where they are
strong and restrict the focus to the markets where they are
strong.
• Expansion initiatives are taken up with careful consideration.
• Great movement to reduce the debt in the balance sheets.
• They are moving towards high variable cost structure
reducing the fixed costs in the system.
• Non core assets are being sold.
• Cash generated from the assets are deployed in core business

13. Corporate Strategies to Focus
• To build asset light business models.
• Convert most of the fixed costs into variable costs.
• Explore outsourcing as a main plank of the strategy.
• Focus on growth should be on emerging high growth markets.
• Focus should be on middle class consumer segments and fast
growing sectors.
• Fast response. The enterprise should become highly agile and
adaptive to the developments at a good speed.
• Increased Focus on short term performance.
• Closely monitor the environmental developments and the
corporate performance on a continuous basis

14. Corporate Strategies
• come up with appropriate response at regular intervals to
environment developments.
• Sensing and addressing the rapidly changing values and
expectations of the stakeholders.
• Use big data for decision making.
• Should be a focus on conservation of resources .
• Improvement in productivity of the enterprise.
• Engage with the customer through various channels including
digital marketing strategies.
• Adopt technology with an aggressive approach

15. Thank You