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Dr. Bhavarlal Jain and his son Anil Jain are engaged in a discussion about long-term planning for Jain Irrigation Systems Limited (JISL)-a company engaged in micro-irrigation, processed foods and a range of other agronomical activities-with an emphasis on how the company will meet the challenges that the food system of the future presents: a changing climate; booming global population; the need for increased production of nutritious foods; and scarce land and water resources among many other challenges. Both Dr. and Anil Jain are trying to understand how they can take the success they have had in helping India's farmers boost production and productivity through JISL's micro-irrigation systems and continue to tailor their services to meet the needs of Indian farmers.

The CareerLeader business career self-assessment program provides diagnostic information in three key areas of individual differences.

Facial symmetry, long seen as a sign of beauty, is also thought to lead to success. But new research shows that subtle asymmetries can actually better position people for certain leadership roles, and offers some reasons why.

New research is upending the long-held belief that the desire for profit is what inspires innovation. Recent studies show that innovations by consumers who give their ideas away are outpacing innovations by companies that hope to sell them. And that throws the need for intellectual property protection into a whole new light.

The Chinese fireworks industry thrived after China adopted the open-door policy in the late 1970s, and grew to make up 90 per cent of the world’s fireworks export sales. However, starting in the mid-1990s, safety concerns led governments both in China and abroad to set up stricter regulations. At the same time, there was rapid growth in the number of small family-run fireworks workshops, whose relentless price-cutting drove down profit margins. Students are asked to undertake an industry analysis, estimate the industry attractiveness, and propose possible ways to improve the industry attractiveness from an individual investor’s point of view. Jerry Yu is an American-born Chinese in New York who has been invited to buy a fireworks factory in Liuyang, Hunan.

When Kevin Peters became president of Office Depot's North American operations, in 2010, its customer service scores (as graded by a third-party mystery-shopping firm) were soaring-but sales were falling. To understand why, he went undercover, quietly visiting 70 stores in more than 15 states. He talked to customers and observed their behavior. What struck him most was how often they walked out of the store empty-handed. It turned out that Office Depot's customer service scores depended on factors that shoppers didn't really care about-such as the cleanliness of floors and bathrooms. And its employees were being incentivized to focus on the wrong things. (In fact, the company learned that some of its associates preferred interacting with stock over interacting with people.) Peters's conversations with customers gave him three insights: The chain needed to offer smaller stores, to dramatically improve the in-store experience, and to add value with services such as shipping and copying. Office Depot has since rolled out 30 pilot stores, retrained associates, and begun to see the first signs of improvement.

He may not appear to be one, but Murthy is quite the contrarian. At a time when few Indians felt they could become entrepreneurs, he founded Infosys with just $1,000. When no one believed that India could compete in the high tech arena, he dared to develop software services for export. In an era when hardly anyone in India conducted business ethically, he set out to create a values-based corporation. Over his 30-year tenure, Murthy has largely succeeded. He helped create a $6 billion technology firm with over 134,000 employees, pioneered an innovative way of delivering software services globally, and strove to make Infosys the epitome of a "good" company. That's a reputation that is hard won and easily lost, especially in India today, where companies are notorious for their lack of transparency. In fact, public outrage against corruption reached a flashpoint in August 2011, with millions taking to the streets in protest. As businesses gird for change in India, Infosys faces its own turning point. In August, Murthy stepped down as chairman, according to plan. In this interview, Murthy explains that building a values-based firm is a never-ending process. Leaders must demonstrate that values matter every day, at every turn.

Excellence in community engagement, labor relations, environmental protection, corporate governance, and supply chain accountability isn't easy to achieve. But in the long run, top performance in those areas strengthens an organization, as the five companies profiled in this article demonstrate. They prove that doing the right thing isn't at odds at all with building the bottom line, and in fact it can be integral to a firm's economic logic. Dutch chemical maker Royal DSM, for instance, not only specializes in nutritional and environmental products but gives them away to people in need. That unconventional move is helping DSM win the talent war and crack critical markets. Southwest has become America's largest domestic airline by committing to employee happiness. China's Broad Group has won industrial customers worldwide with its energy-efficient air conditioning and filtration systems and is now moving into sustainable building construction. PotashCorp, a Canadian fertilizer company, has raised the bar on transparency in governance-and is reaping the reputational rewards. And Unilever has proved that it is possible to make your supply chain more sustainable, even if you sell 170 billion products across 180 countries a year and run 250 factories.

A growing number of socially motivated entrepreneurs have been creating new kinds of organizations that combine a social mission with a business engine. Unlike typical for-profits, these "for-benefit" enterprises have social or environmental outcomes as their ultimate bottom line; and unlike typical nonprofits, they derive their income mostly from the sale of goods and services rather than from grants and donations. They defy classification as pure business or non-profit and are very much a blend of the two. Many more such enterprises would exist, except that most entrepreneurs haven't been able to choose "for-benefit" as a legally recognized organizational structure. Most countries' legal and economic systems allow only for-profit or nonprofit activity, so entrepreneurs often end up shoehorning their vision into one or the other structure and accepting burdensome trade-offs in the process. All this seems destined to change. For-benefit enterprises will become more commonplace as entrepreneurs learn to better navigate existing constraints, and as an ecosystem of specialized support-including public policy, financial markets, accounting standards, and professional services-develops around them. The even bigger news is what will happen then, writes the author. With formalization of the for-benefit structure, we will see the emergence of a fourth sector of the economy, interacting with but separate from government, nonprofits, and for-profit businesses. The rise of that sector is likely to reshape the future of capitalism.

What does it take for an average manager to become a highly effective leader? There are countless books, models, and formulas for success. But the truth is that leadership transformation is deeply dependent on circumstances. The key for those who seek it is to absorb the insights that can be drawn from the successful experiences of others. During their in-depth study of seven CEOs, the authors uncovered seven interdependent metaphors, which they went on to test with more than 10,000 managers on four continents. They discuss four of those metaphors-fire, snowball, mask, and movie-here, in the context of individual managers' experiences.

Frank Gehry is, at 82, America's most celebrated living architect. Though his creativity has made him famous, his approach to budgeting, client relationships, and project management have played a large role in his success.

Bryan Preston, CEO of the Back Office Cooperative, leads several large human service providers through the process of building a shared-services platform to leverage scale and efficiencies. This successful collaboration matches the business case for restructuring against the constraints of mission-driven enterprises.

In 2008, International Automotive Company (IAC), a German manufacturer of automotive parts, acquired a plant in Reynosa, Mexico. This plant produced various types of motors for power windows, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and wipers. At the time of acquisition, the plant was showing record losses. Because the acquisition was internally financed, it was crucial to make the plant profitable quickly. After conducting a deep analysis, the company discovered that a lack of proper management in the supply chain system was leading to a large amount of wasted resources. As a result, managers looked for opportunities to save money and facilitate improvements mainly in areas such as packaging, warehousing, and transportation. One of the greatest obstacles involved IAC’s employees, who were falling short in terms of knowledge and motivation.

The majority owner and general manager of City Furniture and Mattress (CFM) needed to make several decisions that would determine the company’s strategy. CFM had continued to grow in terms of sales, but the general manager and his father, also an owner and manager at CFM, were concerned with profitability and the increasing competition from local and big-box stores. The general manager looked at several options including capital investment, expanding global outsourcing, store network expansion, and vertical integration.

A.P. Nichols, a distributor of parts in the maintenance, overhaul, and repair industry, is facing the need to realign its strategy to cope with a competitive environment. A key component of this realignment involves changes to the culture and compensation of its sales force while simultaneously building sufficient sales capacity to take advantage of opportunities in key markets. The case focuses on the newly hired vice president (VP) of sales, who is tasked with leading the change initiative. Immediate issues facing the VP include: 1) alignment of the client service representative (CSR) team to the strategy and new model; 2) infrastructure and the need to make a commitment to invest in bringing it up to a best-in-class level; and 3) building a critical mass in the CSR group.

The case depicts a mission and values driven firm, how it was turned around, and its unique strategy of enabling others to succeed.

The case depicts a mission- and values-driven company. It describes the development of the firm over time, its leadership and challenges it faces to sustain its culture.

Vithal Kamat, chairman and managing director of Kamat Hotels India Ltd., was a second-generation entrepreneur who has taken the Kamat Hotels brand to new heights. Kamat Hotels included five major verticals, from five-star luxury hotels (The Orchid Ecotels) to economy restaurants (Kamat Restaurants) catering to different customer segments. Kamat had ambitious plans for the expansion of every vertical using alternative growth strategies. However, the recent economic slump had caused a sudden setback due to the fall in average room occupancy and competing room-tariff rates offered by other hotels. In such a tumultuous situation, Kamat planned to use the core competency of The Orchid as an “ecotel,” that is, an environmentally friendly hotel, to go in for corporate branding and leverage its position in the market.<br><br>The case illustrates the challenges faced by Kamat in extending the core competency of The Orchid to its other verticals. The Orchid had performed better than the industry average until 2008, but in 2009 its performance dipped, partly because of the economic recession. This prompted the company board members to decide on extending the core competency of the ecologically sustainable hotel into other verticals. However, this decision had to be considered carefully in light of its impact on The Orchid as well as on the other verticals. What were the challenges that would be faced while extending the core competency of “ecoteling” to the other verticals?

Most family businesses do not last long. Only one-third are able to survive the transition from the first to second generation. A critical issue in the survival of family businesses is the management of succession. Most successions fail because first-generation founders find it difficult to disengage from their business as they approach the age of retirement. As a result, they fail to prepare the next generation of successors for the leadership role. A founder’s failure to plan for succession is due to various reasons, such as a lack of non-work interests, psychological identity with a firm, and fears of aging or death. Due to these reasons, the founder’s retirement is frequently portrayed as a negative event. Succession, in turn, is often seen as a phase of crisis and upheaval, which a business must overcome. However, this need not necessarily be the case. Retirement can be a new and exciting phase of life, while succession can be viewed as a strategic opportunity to revive a business.<br><br>This case involves an accomplished business leader, B.K. Jhawar, founder of Usha Martin Group, who successfully managed the twin challenges of retirement and succession. By the time he reached the age of retirement, Jhawar had built up a social venture (KGVK) as his second career. Before completely disengaging from the business and transitioning to his new role full-time, Jhawar prepared the second generation for business leadership and effectively passed on the baton.

The year 2006 marked the beginning of 2b Design, a social business in Lebanon that specialized in creating handmade furniture and decorative pieces. Raja Moubarak and his wife, Benedicte de Blavous, created their business venture around a focused social mission to preserve disappearing art, architecture, and heritage through artistic creations and employing marginalized people, particularly the handicapped and unemployable. By collecting and using wrought-iron and wooden pieces found in scrap yards from old Lebanese homes dating back to the Ottoman Empire, 2b Design managed to preserve a heritage that was increasingly at risk of extinction while both improving lives and maximizing positive environmental impacts through recycling scrap material. 2b Design’s mission was articulated as to “restore the unseen beauty of the broken.” “The broken” referred to the Middle East’s disappearing traditional heritage and to those people whose socioeconomic status or disabilities hindered them from leading a good life. 2b Design’s vision was to replicate the same concept in different countries beyond Lebanon. The founders were keen on exploring various channels that would gradually improve the impact of their business while meeting the dual challenge of long-term sustainability and the transformation of lives.