Corporate Strategy of Indian Organizations: The ‘Root–Branch’ Framework
Authors: Karki Rajnish 
Published: August 2016

Corporate strategy questions relating to the appropriate measures of performance, the rate of growth and extent of diversification, and the ways to mobilize resources and develop requisite competencies are of current and high importance to Indian organizations. In the coming decade, they need to adopt rigorous and appropriate corporate strategy approaches as they face a complex, fast changing, and globalizing business environment. Since the beginning of strategic management discipline, the four major corporate strategy frameworks that have emerged are - SWOT in the 1960s, Strategic Planning Matrix in the 1970s, Competitiveness in the 1980s, and Core Competency in the 1990s. Based on an assessment of the frameworks, corporate strategy is considered as a response to imperatives in the evolutionary and emerging contexts and the perspective of the coming decade is taken to explore the Indian business situation. The imperatives for corporate strategy of Indian organizations in the coming decade are: From the evolutionary context — Correcting the mindset of dependency on the government; going beyond rationalization of businesses; establishing tight linkages between corporate and business strategies with operations; venturing into new areas; and, building on success against multinational corporations. From the emerging context — Large, growing, and internationalizing Indian economy; globally integrated capital markets; information and communication technologies; tenets of governance; and, management resource and capability. As these imperatives are different and variegated and do not match with any single period of American business, the existing frameworks are inadequate in terms of patterns responded and inappropriate in terms of analytical approaches and prescriptions. A ‘root-branch’ corporate strategy framework addresses the contextual patterns and imperatives of an organization. It conceptualizes corporate strategy of an organization as a gestalt of three sets of components — ‘root’ as the first level response to the commonalities in the context shared by all the organizations; a ‘branch’ or types of strategic direction depending on its match with requirements and characteristics of a type; and components based on its industry-and company-specific factors. The frame- work can be applied to any geographical or sectoral situation, and root and branch components can be delineated based on the analysis of imperatives in evolutionary and emerging contexts. For Indian organizations in the coming decade, corporate strategy should be built around: the root of ‘being honest’ and ‘being world-class’ one of the three viable branches or types of strategic direction - ‘India focused,’ ‘India diversified,’ and ‘global focused.’ In conclusion, the three viable and effective corporate strategies for Indian organizations in the coming decade are — “Being honest + Being world-class + India focused,” “Being honest + Being world-class + India diversified,” and “Being honest + Being world- class + Global focused.” To be successful, the agenda of an organization is to achieve and sustain consistency among the various components and with the requirements of ‘root’ and chosen ‘branch’ or strategic direction. And the agenda will need to be translated into and be implemented through a well-calibrated sequence of business and organizational initiatives.