Description

Culture - A Roadblock or Catalyst for Digital Transformation? The Leadership Challenge for Indian Pharma

Research shows that culture is the number one barrier to digital transformation. Hence, leaders must work on building a culture that fosters experimentation and learning agility to bring about digital transformation of their businesses.

While culture eats strategy for breakfast, innovation for lunch, and digital transformation for dinner, a positive digital culture looks at ways to create space - physical and virtual for thinking, reflection and developing creative approaches, that is necessary for digital transformation.

Work cultures that have grown up over decades can be complex, slow moving and complacent. Leaders need to intentionally reshape the organizational culture to energize people for work in the digital age.

It is critical for leaders to tune the work culture to nurture, anticipate and propel people, and the business, forward.

What truly drives a culture of digital transformation requires something less tangible than software, artificial intelligence or other innovative technologies. I believe it revolves around a shared, customer-centric mindset that permeates from its leadership, a flexible organization that embraces change and a willingness to take carefully controlled risks.

Video

Two hours to go till our Wednesday's live Q&A. This week's talk is on Culture and its importance for digital transformation. Join Hariram Krishnan and Anup Soans for a yet another insightful conversation!

What are the top challenges in your company that come in the way of digital transformation?

5 Votes

Thinking beyond a campaign mentality and strategy

20%

Cooperation between departments and breaking down silos

20%

Lack of resources and budget allocations

Understanding the behaviour and impact of new ‘connected’ customers

Inertia and resistance in the company’s culture to digital adoption

60%

Wonderful session Hari Sir and Anup your personal examples are truly inspiring. Loved the expression "Changing the smell of the place" changing the context will help change people

Thank you, Deep. What we are struggling with in pharma currently is the smell of the place. Needs contextual change.

Exellent articulation sir ,However possibly we need a same page orientetion team with empoerment who will fight tooth & Nail to execute the Futureistic vision for the betterment of all, in the given Organaisation .

Thank you Sandeep. I fully agree. It’s the leadership that has to look at and decide about empowering the team

Yes, possibly like the person Salil Kallianpur, talks about in his webinars - "who had the audacity to tell Apple C-Suite that, products were not the future, but services are!"

This is true empowerment in practice. Needs cutting across hierarchies and LISTENING

Digital Transformation - "Customer-Facing Operation/interaction" is a change that needs to be embraced by the entire Pharma Industry in one go. Conventionally such metaphoric changes are either enforced by governance e.g GST or driven by Industry leader e.g (Reliance / Amazon which has +30% MS) Unfortunately, Indian Pharma is highly fragmented and neither of the leaders has a majority share ( Abbott has approx 3% MS). In such a scenario, who do you feel will drive the digital change? since it would require considerably mid-shift and capital investment in talent development/process change etc. Whichever company that makes the first move has to NOT only ensure that this investment brings ROI but also to ringfence their talent from the competitor poaching.

Very well said Amaninder. Who will bell the cat has always been the issue in Indian Pharma - whether it is transactional selling or trade margins.

I am witness to two unconventional and bold decision ( transformative in a way ) ; Serdia not giving product samples unlike other pharma (common promotion practice ) and Pharmacia taking 20% cut in top-line sales when KG Ananth Krishnan took over in 2001 from Peter Douglas to streamline the operation to realistic growth trajectory level. The fate of Pharmacia was short-lived with Merger in 2004 and Serdia (Servier) journey has been slow (<10% CAGR; my guestimate) Nevertheless, both the companies were able to make the bold unconventional decision, since they were small (< 100 Cr) and more so fully owned subsidiaries (no shareholders baggage) unlike many other big pharma which have shareholders clinging to shoulders for above-market growth (+25%) To bring digital transformation in a midst of pandemic will be a daunting task for any CEO worth his salt who needs to get his neck out on the Damascus sword of company board and shareholders. Will be good to see, who would be the next Dhoni of Pharma

Amaninder, excellent comments. Thank you. It’s for the leadership of each forward looking company to decide on DT. ROI will happen once you have implemented the DT journey effectively and with clear vision and goals. It’s better to be responsive than to be forced to be reactive.

Amaninder...courageous leadership

Excellent presentation, Hari Sir, meticulously structured like a trained instructional design professional, great content, solid examples overall wonderfully explained. Trust such powerful pitch will help leaders to pay greater attention to culture while initiative digital transformation.

Thank you being very liberal. When it comes to culture, whether digital or organisational, in general, I am reminded of Professor Ghoshal who used the metaphor of “smell” to refer the corporate environment and culture and explained what should be the top-management mindset to improve the “smell” of the workplace for the sustainable success of the organization. In the current challenging context, the leaders need to change the Smell while attempting the Digital transformation journey

Thanks Sir, that was a great session on understanding how culture plays a crucial role in the digital transformation.

Thank you Bose Srinivas

Thanks a lot Sir, for sharing the insights for Digital Transformation.

Welcome Prasad.

Thanks you for sharing indept details reg Culture.

Welcome Krishna Prasad

Excellent session Sir. Thank you for explaining so lucidly not only how culture is THE most important aspect of change, but also how it can be done. Lots of myths were busted. Regards

Welcome Salil. Very encouraging.

Thank you sir

Welcome Senthil for watching and listening

SBI is really a surprise game changer

Yes, it is. Lots of hard work done to change

yes sir true

sir good evening

Thanks Sir for elaborating on shifting and culture ..

Welcome Joshaya Das

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