On What We Gained in the Evening of Losing the CNBC Award

For those few moments, we had our hearts in our mouths when Shruti Mishra of CNBC named Aludecor as one of the 5 nominees. Seconds later came the announcement ‘and the winner is HD Fire Protect…’

We missed it! The best SME trophy at the CNBC Emerging India Awards had gone to someone else. It took some time to sink in. We were disappointed. But only briefly.

For our CMD Mr. Ashok Kr Bhaiya, our HR & Communications Head Ms. Rekha Sarda and of course myself were soon to be engrossed by the extremely enriching and enlightening insights from the who’s who of the industry which included the ICICI Head Ms. Chanda Kochar, the Aditya Birla Group Head Mr. D Shivakumar, the Vodafone Head Mr. Sunil Sood, the former Microsoft India chief Mr. Bhaskar Pramanik and the Siemens chief Mr. Sunil Mathur. And at the end of the 8th February evening, we had a lot to carry back home to our Aludecor team.

Following are excerpts:

1. There are basically two strategic paths a business can travel down. Option one: take the low-cost path, cutting costs as much as possible and then pass those savings to the customer in the form of lower prices. Option two: try to differentiate your product in such a way that consumers are willing to pay a price premium. The first option can involve complex operations management schemes and will be tough to sustain in the long run. The second option requires creativity and innovation in order to develop a differentiating quality. And the category leaders choose the second option to survive, sustain and scale up the businesses.
2. Today India is where China was in the early 2000s. The big thing is, we can now actually see India heading towards being a $10 trillion economy. The market is acting in a certain way and we are heading towards this compounded growth rate, the impact of which we underrate. We see one of those things coming and just hope we can get the execution right. Startup ecosystem will help create a $10 trillion economy. The Indian startup ecosystem has grown by 270 percent. We have over 26,000 startups, and we are the second largest ecosystem in the world.
3. Tech entrepreneurship will drive India’s growth. Today, India is ready to be one of the top five economies in the world. We already are in the top three in PPP (Purchasing Power Parity), but in terms of the current value of GDP we will be among the top five by 2030. Digitization will be the key growth driver, be it in manufacturing, services or advertising.
4. By 2020, the average age in India will be 29 years, whereas in Europe it will be 45 years, in China 35 years, and in the US 31 years. We are going to have a young consuming population for the next 15 to 20 years. We are the youngest country in the world with a sizable population.
5. The theory of disruptive innovation has proved to be a powerful way of thinking about innovation-driven growth. Many leaders of small, entrepreneurial companies consider it their guiding star. “Disruption” describes a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses.
6. Execution is more important than planning at the middle levels. The perfect plan, poorly executed, will fail. A lousy plan, well executed, is often successful. It may sound obvious, but the way to fix it is ‘working harder’. Middle Management Development is critical to any brand’s success because middle-level managers are the bridge between organization’s strategy and execution. Plan, Schedule, and Organize work effectively to keep the business on track. Focus on top priorities and critical results. This will surely ensure the desired success.
7. Our jobs as marketers are to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them do so. We need to listen to the consumer proactively and revolve our marketing strategies and activities around it, thus resulting in creating a competitive advantage over competitions.
8. It has been a long journey for us in the CNBC Awards. We are back to work with absolutely no sense of loss, but rather with a sense of fulfillment. Team Aludecor is back to soldiering on to enter the league of the best.

It has been a long journey for us in the CNBC Awards. We are back to work with absolutely no sense of loss, but rather with a sense of fulfilment. Team Aludecor is back to soldiering on to enter the league of the best.

And heartiest congratulations to HD Fire Protect and all the winners.