Posts Tagged ‘Global Leadership Summit’

At this year’s London Business School Global Leadership Summit business leaders such as Shell’s Peter Voser, Nestle’s Paul Bulcke, Vodafone’s Vittorio Colao and Celtel’s Mo Ibrahim discussed emerging market opportunities and challenges. My key take aways:

- Shift in powerbase from the west to emerging markets will continue
- Western multinationals becoming more local in their approach
- Emerging market growth is not a zero sum game
- Increased reliance on “coopetition”

Similar to in last year’s event, there were few new insights. Western participants were keen to emphasize the win-win whereas emerging market panellists were optimistic that their time had come and that the trend of acquiring western brands, technology and process would continue.

Challenges remain, including those related to post merger integration which I referred to in a post in November. The capacity of emerging markets to absorb capital inflows, asset appreciation leading to inflation, poor infrastructure and government intervention are some others.

See London Business School for more as they add content from the event.

Jeff Immelt, Willie Walsh, Unilever’s Paul Polman and RBS’s Stephen Hester were amongst political and business leaders at the London Business School’s GLobal Leadership Summit on Monday. My key take aways were:

- Most leaders relatively pessimistic about a quick recovery
- Highlighted using the crisis to drive for innovation, differentiation and take share/grow
- Also to re-set the company – new business models, structures, talent
- See opportunities in the East vs. West
- Jeff Immelt and Willie Walsh impressive in terms of openness and directness

While perhaps not full of groundbreaking ideas, I think you will find my notes from the day interesting to browse through and perhaps share a few thoughts with your leadership teams. Download them here.

I was struck most by the apparent willingness to take this “crisis” as an opportunity to become more aggressive in terms of driving for growth and innovating. While this is something I would tend to advise, I wonder how this in fact translates into what companies are actually doing. We hear a lot about cost cutting and “re-setting the organisation” but not yet about pushing for growth. Something to look for as winners and losers start to emerge.

See London Business School for more as their site is updated.