CK Prahalad- Master business thinker

by Amit Gulati

“C.K. Prahalad (1941-2010), one of the world’s most influential business thinkers and one of the most beloved teachers at the University of Michigan, had a huge impact on business and business education around the world. He created the base of the pyramid idea and changed the way the world viewed India’s economic potential. One of his 2004 books, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits, is widely considered indispensable reading for executives and scholars who wish to understand emerging markets. The book presents 12 case studies, some of them co-authored by Ross MBA students, which illustrate how some companies are turning a profit while bringing enormous social and material improvements to some of the world’s poorest populations.”

 

For a creative person to mourn the loss of a person on the other side is rare- we are most likely to be at loggerheads with the management. But then I did not know C K Prahalad. There is not much I can add to what has already been written about him. For us at Incubis though, the team which worked on Ginger Hotels, myself and my brother Rohit who had the privilege of interacting with him personally, the loss is heartfelt. Launched in June 2001, the Smart Basis concept created a revolution in the world of Indian hospitality. A GenNext category of hotels, Ginger signifies simplicity, convenience, informality, style, warmth, modernity and affordability and addresses the needs of the business traveler.

 

CKP was already well known for his passion for grassroots innovation when he was handpicked by Indian Hotels Company (owners of the Taj Group) to mentor the strategic development and design for a new and innovative chain of hotels in the limited service segment. It was quite clear for the start that for a company focused on luxury, developing a new hotel around an affordance framework would require serious changes in mindset. The first thing CKP did was to get all the project participants to focus on delivering a ‘smart’ product built around the needs and aspirations of the ‘emerging Indian’ traveler. Our fledgling architecture and design firm, Incubis had practically no experience of the hotel sectors and by the time we were being considered as potential partner on the design development of the concept, several well known international firms had already presented their initial ideas, CKP surprised many n the Indian Hotels’ management by shortlisting us so that our lack of previous experience would allow a fresh paradigm to emerge. It was typical CKP though and it required great entrepreneurial energy to carry these through by getting consistent management support. He immediately grasped the value our diverse work in architecture, product design and environments could add and viewed our potential weakness as a strength. CKP was great at putting together cross functional people and getting them to synergize their competencies to ‘co=create’ successfully. We got the rare opportunity to see management thinking being put into immediate application up-close and were constantly struck by his unique blend of intelligence and approachability. CKP urged the team to use design thinking to immerse ourselves into a potential guest’s mind and daily rhythms and offer a compelling mix of ‘high touch’, ‘robust flexibility’ and ‘disruptive value’. He taught us that low-cost does not necessarily have to translate into low quality. A realignment of priorities in an innovative way is what delivers the goods.

 

Prototyping, user testing and iterative tools were used extensively during the early stages of the process and ‘getting into the sand-pit’ and reconfiguring the concepts (in this case done in the form of building several actual hotel room mock-ups) to evolve and refine was also something he was a part of. I clearly remember how conventional television sets were making the initial mock-up rooms look cramped and awkward. The elegant solution that emerged was to use wall mounted LCD screens (quite expensive at the time) to save space as well as raise the ‘smart’ quotient. The Taj group soon followed to upgrade screens across its properties to LCDs. In our several interactions with him we were constantly struck by CKP’s energy and ability to give everyone’s opinion a perspective. There was no Jargon- only a refreshingly clear sense of where to go next. Conversations with him were never one-way and aggressive debate was what he employed to get everyone to think- through their ideas.

Working with CKP was an awesome learning experience that we will always cherish…a true ideas man who respected the power of innovation no matter how humble the source, and taught companies to address mass markets in a locally relevant, responsible, yet profitable way.

This article was first published by the POOL Magazine in June, 2010.