Management Personalities

Micro-scoping on India, we too have prominent ‘Management Gurus’, from legends to

contemporary trend setters. But before we delve into our journey on their works, a noticeable
fact is that these business thinkers have studied, travelled, worked, operated, managed and made
their presence felt in many parts of the globe.

(1) C.K. Prahalad

If you wish to refer to one of the greatest Indian business thinkers, C.K. Prahalad should be on
the top of your list. He needs no introduction; every management student in India and
internationally knows the name C.K. Prahalad. He is known not only for his prolific works also
for his management perceptions and strategies.

CK Prahalad is a professor, researcher, speaker, author and prominent consultant. Business Week
has called him “a brilliant teacher at the University of Michigan” and also described him as
“maybe the most influential thinker on business strategy today.”

In addition to serving as the Harvey C. Freuhauf Professor of Business Administration at the

University Of Michigan Business School, Prahalad specializes in corporate strategy and the role
of top management in large, diversified, multinational corporations.

In 1994 he co-authored the bestseller, Competing for the Future, with Gary Hamel. Translated
into 14 languages, it was named the Best Selling Business Book of the Year in 1994. Prahalad is
particularly well known for the work he has conducted with fellow strategy expert Gary Hamel.
This includes the articles The Core Competence of the Corporation (Harvard Business Review,
May-June, 1990), Competing in the New Economy: Managing Out of Bounds (Strategic
Management Journal, Vol. 17, No. 3, March, 1996) as well as the bestselling book Competing
for the Future: Breakthrough Strategies for Seizing Control of Your Industry and Creating the
Markets of Tomorrow (1994).

He has won numerous awards. The most recent include the McKinsey Prize three times, the
SMR-PWC award, and the ANBAR Electronic Citation of Excellence.

A prominent world-class guru, Professor Prahalad has consulted with the world's foremost
companies, such as Ahlstrom, AT&T, Cargill, Citicorp, Eastman Chemical, Kodak, Oracle,
Philips, Quantum, Revlon, Steelcase, and Unilever. In addition, he serves on the Board of
Directors of NCR Corporation, Hindustan Lever Limited and the World Resources Institute and
services on the Board of Directors of NCR Corporation, Hindustan Lever Limited and the World
Resources Institute.

His latest book, ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through
Profits’, proves that the future will develop from serving the poor, because the innovations that
are developed are superior-- top quality, low price, high volume and world-scale. Only the best
innovations will work for both sides of the equation, those in poverty and those in the
“developed” countries.
Books by C.K. Prahalad

 The fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid (August 25, 2004)

 Competing for the future (Co-authored with Gary Hamel)
 The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers (2004 - co-authored with
Venkat Ramaswamy)
 In search of excellence
 Multinational Mission: Balancing Local Demands and Global Vision (1987)

C.K. Prahalad is also the author of numerous award-winning articles. Harvard Business Review
awarded the McKinsey Prize to him three times for the following articles:-

 "The End of Corporate Imperialism", co-authored with Kenneth Lieberthal (1998)

 "The Core Competence of the Corporation", co-authored with Gary Hamel (1990)
 "Strategic Intent", also co-authored with Gary Hamel (1989)
 "The New Frontier of Experience Innovation" published in Sloan Management Review won the
SMR-PWC award for the best paper published in 2003
 "Weak Signals vs. Strong Paradigms", published in the Journal of Marketing Research (1995) was
awarded the 1997 ANBAR Electronic Citation of Excellence
 "The Dominant Logic: A New Linkage between Diversity and Performance" (1986), co-authored
with Richard Bettis, was selected the Best Article published in the Strategic Management Journal
for the period 1980-88
 "The Role of Core Competencies in the Corporation" (1993) received the 1994 Maurice Holland
Award as the Best Paper published in Research Technology Management in 1993