Shoppers Stop founder BS Nagesh exalts biggest Print Summit

More than 780 print CEOs and allied professionals, the biggest ever in Print Summit attendance, heard the keynote speaker deliver three key takeaways in his presentation: one, define your purpose of doing business and aligning it with your personal goals; two, collaborate, even if it means doing it with your competitors, to gain advantage; and third, create an environment where one as an individual and his team, can innovate.

For any organisation or an entity, the key element has to be purpose. Most of the time, we go about setting goals and objectives, but don’t set a purpose. “How many of us sitting here have clearly identified the purpose of your organisation,” asked Nagesh. “Is your organisations purpose just printing or making money, creating communication, I don’t what it is, but how many of you have this purpose defined?”

Next he asked, how many have personal mission or a purpose defined for yourself? “Unfortunately, the alignment of the two purposes does not meet.”

He gave an example, where he was once with a chairman of a family-owned company, who was around 50 years old, what was his purpose in business and life? The gentleman said, I am somehow looking to ensure that my family business is transferred to my children. He then went on to ask the same question to his son, who said, he was looking at a technology business because he is not interested in his father’s business. Nagesh narrated that he went on to ask the other son, what his purpose was, and he said, if my dad retires and my brother goes away, I don’t know how I am going to manage the business.

“Here the business and personal purposes are not at all aligned. If your purpose of your business is not aligned with your own purpose, how can the organisation be driven,” he said.

The other aspect of business he emphasises on was the goal of a business and how we confuse the purpose of our business goals. He gave another example. “Once I was with a football team in Pune, and talking to the captain, I asked him what would he want to do? He said, ‘I want to hit one goal.’ I asked him, what if your competitor hit two goals. He changed his answer, and told me that he wants to win the match. I told what if your competitor wants to win the tournament? He though and then realised that he should become the best football team in Pune. His purpose started expanding.”

Nagesh added, “We also need to keep reviewing our purpose, looking at it again and again, especially in this drastically changing world.”

A lot of printers are thinking about what will happen with digital taking over the printing space. As much as 75% of discussions are about this technology or that competition hitting us. Very rarely do we discuss, what are we going to do if such a situation arise. “Should we counter it or run away? That choice is clearly driven by the purpose of what want to do,” he said.

Collaborate – Collaboration is about mindset. Collaboration does not say don’t align with your competitors. Collaborating with your competition can also derive you advantage. For example, as printers, your biggest buys are consumables, paper for one. Buying in bulk will help save money. “Fab India is all about collaboration,” said Nagesh.

Innovation, is a simple word but is very difficult to do. Innovation can happen only when there is an environment to excel. Nagesh said, “We talk about Indians innovating in Silicon Valley. The same Indian cannot do the same kind of innovation here in India. Why?” The answer, Nagesh said, lies in creating an environment where the individual and his people can excel and innovate.

Nagesh further added, not allowing individuals/groups to do things because of fear of failure, is yet another factor that derails innovation. “In our personal life, we encouraged our toddlers to walk, run, even if they fall. There’s no harm doing the same with the people in your business. Try not to give up, allow people to try as you would in your personal life,” he said.

And finally, Nagesh signed off by saying, when you achieve success, celebrate every moment of it, including celebrating it in your office.