When we visited Dr Wilfried Aulbur in his Zen-like office in Pune, two apparently disparate markers of tradition immediately caught our attention: delectable miniature car models that the CEO of Mercedes-Benz India curated us through with joyful enthusiasm; and a small statue of Gandhi, who he credits as “the one responsible for the confident India we live in today.” In this exclusive article for The Smart Manager, Dr Aulbur addresses the challenges that ‘tradition’ poses before legacy brands li

"Manufactured as the ‘world’s cheapest car’, the Vega MINO is now making the managers driving its brand grapple with the question whether the connotations of the adjective ‘cheapest’ will put people off from actually buying the car. A car in India is after all an aspirational buy...or is it?"

The dynamic Chairman of Bajaj Group extols the virtue of embracing change and having the right outlook towards the future.

The man behind the growth of Hero Honda into the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles stresses on the importance of having a clear vision for the future and working towards it single-mindedly.

In an exclusive interview to The Smart Manager, Jack Trout, talks about his latest book, "In Search of the Obvious: The Antidote for Today's Marketing Mess", wherein he spells his mantra for marketers as searching for that one obvious differentiating idea rather than adding to the razzmatazz (read clutter) which already surrounds the marketing profession.

Contrary to popular perception mass customization is not about achieving a Utopian state, where the company creates or produces goods or services to order.

The concept of ‘organizational fitness for purpose’ has been around since 1978. Morgen Witzel, deconstructs and discusses the concept in detail…

Professor of Organizational Behavior at University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, David Hofmann, talks about the changing contours of risk management.

An architect by profession, he is, today, Chairman of India''s largest business conglomerate. Naysayers not withstanding, he went right ahead and delivered on his promise, the Nano- as much a work of design as it is a people''s car.

“Lean thinking is used to reduce and eliminate waste while improving process efficiency and speed. Companies should implement lean methodologies first to maximize six sigma project gains,” says the deputy general manager, organizational excellence group, ICICI Bank.

How do leaders generate high performance? Is this behavior consistent among leaders around the world, or are there differences between countries or corporate cultures? Joseph DiStefano reveals some interesting findings.

Are you looking for an innovative way to reach your target customer? Adopt buzz marketing and give your customers something to talk about, says Professor Nirmalya Kumar, London Business School.

When sales stagnates through you have a superior product that adds value to customers, what can the marketing team do to change the situation? This was the tricky problem facing Amara Raja Batteries Limited (ARBL). This is what they did to accelerate sales.

As motorcycles overtook scooters, the king of the road saw his kingdom shrink. Here is the story of how Bajaj Auto zoomed back.

Gita Piramal makes the Hero Honda leader drop his defences and delve into his childhood. In a rare interview, Brij Mohanlall Munjal talks of the people who influenced him, the value that held him together and the long lasting relationships he nurtured that supported his every endeavor.

Bajaj Auto uses TPM as its chosen process improvement tool rather than Kaizen. Rajiv Bajaj describes the benefit of the former

99.9% of all companies manufacture in batch mode. But unless you switch over to Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing, you will perish, predicts Maasaki Imai, founder of the Kaizen movement. Should you heed his warning?

We have two exceptional articles in this issue.The profile of Niall FitzGerald by Kamini Banga is powerful not just because the Unilever chairman is an unusual man but also because of Kamini’s skill as an interviewer and writer. She has created a rare portrait of one of the world’s finest managers at his best: thoughtful yet dynamic, introspective yet living in the moment.