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Just returned from Chicago and the Summer AMA ,which was a great conference. The session chaired by Philip Kotler on Age of Turbulence was great. First there was a presentation by John Caslione on a new book he has co-authored with Philip Kotler called "Chaotics" followed by a talk by Jag Sheth on his new book Chindia Rising. Here are some interesting things I took away from the presentations.
John Caslione mentioned about how businesss cycles are changing. Although there are signs of a recovery , the business cycles are likely to be come much shorter and unpredictable. In other words, should not expect a sustained recovery of 10-12 years but many sudden peaks and troughs. To deal with thise sudden ups and downs, the Chaotics book offers suggestions to managers. An interesting suggestion is to revive "scenario planning " to have game plans in advance. Also managers should recognize that "risk" can be calculated but "uncertainty" has no precedence and quick reaction to new situations will be a skill that managers have to develop.
Jag Sheth ,as usual,was brilliant. He joked about getting a Jaguar and calling it "Jag's Jag" now that Tata Motors has acquired Jaguar. He talked about how well Lenovo the Chinese company is doing. The "aha" moment for me was a comment about how the entire academic field including textbooks on international marketing is about developed country companies expanding into developing country markets. Today the world has changed so much that developing country companies are expanding to other developing countries. Jag pointed out the intense activity in Africa by Chinese and Indian companies and generally lower activity by developed country organizations. More about strategy for this new world in Jag Sheth's book "Chindia Rising."
All in all, the packed audience did think that this early Sunday morning session was really worth attending!