“The person who believes in Next practices not in Best practices”

I came to know about Mr. C. K. Prahalad, the famous Management Guru when I was doing my MBA at NSVKMS, MBA College. Like any other B-School student, Mr. Prahalad became my inspiration after I heard about him. I always wanted to see him in person one day. When I was in 4th semester, I got an opportunity to see and listen to him face to face at IIM, Ahmadabad. He usually comes to IIM-A every year where he discusses on particular topics related to his research works. I have attended one of his talks on "Changing the Rules of the Game: India's Role in the Global Industries" at IIM-A in February 2006 organized by Ahmadabad Management Association (AMA). After listening to him there, I got more and more interested in his works. His ideas are unique, innovative and are yet practical in its approach. His thoughts became fresh in my mind when there was a discussion about his contributions in one of the virtual classes here in IMA.

C. K. Prahalad
Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Born August 1, 1950, Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad is the best known management guru from India. He is a management consultant, author, and the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Corporate Strategy at Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. Mr. Prahalad studied and taught at IIM, Ahmadabad before moving to US. He wrote a doctoral thesis on multinational management at Harvard Business School.
His books: -
 The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-created Value Trough Global Networks (latest, Co-authored with M. S. Krishnan)
 The fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid (August 25, 2004)
 Competing for the future (Co-authored with Gary Hamel)
 The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers (2004 - co-authored with Venkat Ramaswamy)
 In search of excellence
 Multinational Mission: Balancing Local Demands and Global Vision (1987)

Some concepts that I like and usually is interesting about him are.............
Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP):
In economics, the bottom of the pyramid is the largest, but poorest socio-economic group. In global terms, this is the four billion people who live on less than $2 per day, typically in developing countries. "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" by Mr. Prahalad focused on market potential available in this segment .

Core competency
Core competency is something that a firm can do well and that meets the following three conditions:
1.It provides consumer benefits
2.It is not easy for competitors to imitate
3.It can be leveraged widely to many products and markets.
The concept of core competencies was developed in the management field. C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel introduced the concept in a 1990 Harvard Business Review article. They wrote that a core competency is "an area of specialized expertise that is the result of harmonizing complex streams of technology and work activity.

Two pillars of the next generation of innovations: N=1 and R=G
N=1 stands for one consumer experience at a time, treating every consumer as unique, and R=G for all the resources that need to be tapped from multiple vendors and around the world to satisfy the experiences of one consumer at a time.
- Harshadkumar V. (C)