Global Management Guru

  Introduction

                                                                                                                                                

• With the changing scenario in Corporate Management systems all across the globe, the need for specialist management consultants for the corporate industries to run the show became a highly pressing need. The word, Management Guru became a popular management term in the mid-eighties of the last century although it was coined in 1960s. The globalization of economy, rise of free market, GATT proposals, formation of new business laws by Governments, free availability of World Wide Web to people in 1993, and revolution in communication technology brought a metamorphic change in the management theories and principles in the corporate world. The growth of IT industries made another revolutionary change in a similar fashion.
• Mostly, the Management Gurus are either from top notch Business schools like Harvard University, London Business School, INSEAD, Stanford University or they are from the highest echelons of corporate groups like Microsoft, Apple, Infosys, Ford, Tata group etc.
• C.K. Prahlad, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs have become such iconic names which even the children of today’s world know.

Rankings of Management Gurus

• The Forbes Magazine released the List of Thinkers50 for the greatest management minds or Gurus, in which Mr. C.K. Prahlad, an Indian from Coimbatore and the chief of  Infosys , who was famous for his idea on core competency, ranked 1st  and Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation ranked 2nd in 2007 and again in 2009 Mr. Prahlad ranked 1st and Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. ranked 4th.
• The Thinkers50 management consulting firm run by Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove provide a list of ranking for the best management thinkers on earth every two years. They started it in 2001 and it is called the Oscar of management thinking mind. The last list was provided by them in 2015 and the highest ranking and award went to Mr. Michael Porter, a professor from Harvard Business School. He is considered to be the father of modern business strategy. His famous theory is Five Forces Framework, which tells about the five forces that guide the competitiveness of an industry. The five forces are Threat of New Entrants, Threat of New Substitutes, Bargaining Power of Customers, Bargaining Power of Suppliers and Industry Rivalry. The second position went to Mr. Clayton Christensen of Harvard business School, a prolific writer, famous for his 1997 book Innovator’s Dilemma. Mr. Clayton ranked first in 2011 and 2013.
• In 2009 another Indian made to the top 50 list of Thinkers50, he is Mr. Ratan Tata, the Chairman of the Tata group. He ranked 12th in 2009, the same year Mr. C.K. Prahlad ranked first. During the tenure of his operation the Tata group grew manifold and reached highest landmarks.

Role of Management Gurus

• Every Corporate house in today’s world wants to run their business with several management principles befitting their nature of business and marketing principles. The role of the management Gurus provide leverage to the profitability and helps to attain long term goal of the corporate houses. With the advent of new marketing policies and breathtaking pace of market research the ongoing change is a continuous process for the industries to swim steadily against the stream.
•  The six sigma laws and ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 series of Quality management as well as new management visions has brought a new dimension to the changes of management policies. And to keep abreast of the latest updates and also to devise new strategies, the business firms need the consultancy of a management guru who has a vision to see thing in the current perspective and twenty years from now.

The Visionaries

• This widening of the angle of vision can be achieved by the management thinkers like Jack Welch CEO of GE (General Electric). He levered to sky-rocket the growth of GE from $12Billion to $280 Billion. He ranked in the top 50 list of Thinkers50 several times from 2001 to 2009.
• Peter Drucker, the first rank holder in 2001 and 2003 Thinkers50 List, is considered to be the founder of modern management. He was a great thinker and wrote several books on modern management out of which around 40 books were translated in several languages. His key ideas on Decentralization earned him fame and paved way for a liberal and modern management policies eyed with awe. His predicted that Blue-Collar jobs will be defunct in US. His ideas created the modern approach of today’s management.
• Bill Gates, the most enigmatic modern management Guru, needs no introduction. He scored 1590 out of 1600 in Scholastic Aptitude Tests and enrolled in Harvard, but dropped out soon to pursue his own dreams. In 1976 he along with Paul Allen formed a company named Microsoft in 1976, which later on revolutionized the world of operating systems of computers. What made Bill Gates stand out amongst all other charismatic Management Gurus are his predictions. A management Guru is respected and revered not for his theories but mostly by his ability to see the future. And this is where he proved his mettle. His predictions in 1999 about development of social media, websites, and internet Bots became uncannily true as of now. Some of his most current enigmatic predictions will be worth mentioning here :-
• He said in February 2017 at 53rd Munich Security conference that in next 15 years 33 million of world population would be killed by some airborne pathogen.
• In 2015, he predicted that Africa will be self-sufficient in Food production.
• Poor people will start utilizing Mobile banking, even those who do not have Bank account.
• In 2014 he predicted that by 2035 poor countries will no longer exist.
• In 2016 he said that by 2030 a clean renewable energy technology will emerge and revolutionize the world. 
• He is a philanthropist now and donated $2 billion for alternative technology.

 Conclusion

The various predictions and visions of the Management thinkers or Gurus have created uncountable changes in today’s world and for the future world. The catch remains with the fact that how we comprehend such changes and what effective policies we should adhere to, so that a better future can be in store for the future generations to come.