Remembering the great Strategy Guru – C.K.Prahalad (8th August 1941 – 16th April 2010)

The Great Management Guru in Corporate Strategy – Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad – was by no means an ordinary man. He was consulted by the top management of many of the world’s foremost companies and held the role of management thinker in large, diversified, multinational corporations. He had the depth and range of knowledge that he commanded utmost respect by the captains of the industry.

He was a greater thinker who talked of things big and small. He looked at the population as a positive thing and the bottom of pyramid as an opportunity in his path breaking book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. He advised companies to look at the poor as potential customers. His thoughts were always out-of-the-box and he had the optimism that India can become a world-class market. In 2009, he was conferred Padma Bhushan by the Govt of India.

C.K.Prahalad completed his post-graduation from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He gained a Doctor of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Business School. He was working as a Distinguished University Professor at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business in the University of Michigan when he died of a previously undiagnosed lung illness in San Diego on April 16^th.

C.K.Prahalad has consistently been among the top ten management thinkers in every major survey for over ten years. He was one of the most influential thinkers on business strategy. His work on The Core Competence of the Corporation has undoubtedly been his gift to the world. He recommended companies to focus on those capabilities that give them the competitive advantage, also called core competencies.

Talking about India, he advocated transparency and accountability, need for employment generation and growth of the private sector. He suggested that the strategy in India should be adapted according to its requirements and not imported from the west. His winning strategies have become rule book for a whole generation of students and executives.

What was unique about Prahalad was that he was an interesting combination of an academic and a practitioner. The word ‘Guru’ denotes certain level of wisdom, achievement conferred to those who are worthy of it, unspoken and understood.