Former Director, IIMB at Professor of Strategy
Rishikesha Krishnan is an author, columnist and professor of management who focuses on strategy, innovation, and education. He is listed in the Thinkers50 India list of most influential management thinkers from India.
Prof. Krishnan's book 8 Steps to Innovation: Going from Jugaad to Excellence (co-authored with Vinay Dabholkar) won the Best Book Award for 2013-14 from the Indian Society for Training & Development. His earlier book From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India proposed a blueprint for how India can enhance its innovation output.
From 1996-2013, Prof. Krishnan worked at IIM Bangalore, where he held the Jamuna Raghavan Chair in Entrepreneurship from 2007 to 2010. After serving a five year stint from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2018 as the Director of IIM Indore, he returned to IIM Bangalore and is currently Director of IIM Bangalore and Professor of Strategy there. He was educated at IIT Kanpur, Stanford University and IIM Ahmedabad.
The troika of Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor have built an unassailable position in India. What will it take to win other markets, especially Southeast Asia?
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Organisations across the spectrum have been able to get their act together, focus, and solve tough problems quickly. This makes you wonder—why are they unable to muster even a fraction of this ability in normal times?
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Global Capability Centres have played a big role in the development of Indian engineering and innovation capabilities. Protectionist trends like the US-China trade disputes now raise important questions for India
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Innovation is easier in the digital era. Yet, capturing value from innovation is becoming more challenging. This calls for the leader’s role to change to that of chief experimenter
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
We need new frameworks and approaches to re-think strategy and how it should be formulated and taught in this new age. That’s what I learnt from my recent personal learning journey.
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
India has a unique opportunity to pioneer a distinct model of affordable healthcare. There are already many outstanding examples of healthcare innovation in the country
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Indian institutions tend to decay over time. The Indian Institute of Science seems to have defied this trend thanks to a strong commitment to certain core principles
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
We need a more nuanced understanding of this generation. If we look beyond the middle class, urban youth, their aspirations and motivations differ greatly
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Having the right role models is critical to nudging us in the right direction. India needs to look beyond film stars, cricketers and politicians
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
China has evolved into a leading geography for innovation. How has it done that? George Yip and Bruce McKern explore that question in their book ‘China’s Next Strategic Advantage’
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Edward Tse argues in his book 'China's Disruptors' that innovation is happening in China at a pace that will influence the rest of the world sooner than later. Though he doesn’t mention Indian innovation, the comparison is inevitable
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
If Team Indus succeeds in soft landing a spacecraft on the moon and wins the Lunar X Prize, it could set the stage for the company and India to be a big player in space engineering
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
The switch to the new emission norms will lead to interesting shifts in the automotive and energy industries
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
In India, a focus on public health initiatives and re-engineering of proven drugs and treatments to reduce costs will achieve better results than looking for new cures
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
How Pitroda created a modern digital telecom network, backed by publicly-funded R&D
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
There is an urgent need to measure and track whether we are harnessing our creative potential to solve the important problems in education, health and agriculture
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
How do you design and run an innovative company? In his book Deepak Loomba details his experiences in setting up De Core Science and Technologies as a scalable and flexible firm
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
How do you achieve holistic higher education? Sant Singaji Institute of Science and Management in rural Madhya Pradesh shows the way
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Technological innovation is the key to supernormal profits. And India's failure to build high-level innovation capabilities is a failure of entrepreneurship and leadership
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
How do you come up with the disruptive differentiators that will serve the unique needs of the millions of Indians with limited purchasing power, and who are difficult to access? Co-create and build ground-up
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Technological progress is changing the nature of work in ways we don’t realize. For India’s push into manufacturing to be successful, we need to prepare for manufacturing as it will be five years from now
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Some reflections on a recent trip to China: The Indian growth story is opening some more doors, the impact of the slowdown is showing in wage rates and costs, and there's a concerted move to clean-up
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
In an interesting new book, ‘The Silo Effect’, financial journalist Gillian Tett points out that how you are structured influences how you look at the world and how you approach problems.
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Creative inventors with creative ideas need creative capital
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
The emergence of an IP and technology-based leader from India will have a bigger long-term impact than a few Indians heading major global corporations
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
The book offers a comprehensive account of China's economic challenges, political structure and strategic concerns
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
How Tata group's R. Gopalakrishnan, Cognizant's Sukumar Rajagopal, Titan's LR Natarajan and BMC Software's Suhas Kelkar built an ecosystem for innovation
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
The ability to frame a problem, a relentless striving for a better solution, and careful patenting are some of the lessons
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Some of the most admired entrepreneurs started late in life. Dr G. Venkataswamy started Aravind Eye Hospitals after he retired; Steve Jobs was 52 when the iPhone was launched
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
There are increasing signs of breakthroughs that could provide disproportionate returns to Tata companies
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Trends in the US could portend the challenges India will face
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Management scholars in India could do well to study closely the success of global gurus like Jagdish Sheth
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
The MBA programme, as we know it in India today, is an import from the West with modest efforts at adaptation. The time to change it has come.
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
Indian firms find it hard to inculcate radical innovation into their DNA. Perhaps they could draw inspiration from the experiences of US based pharmaceutical firm Vertex.
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
An effort to make sure that the best and brightest don’t get left behind merely because they were born poor or underprivileged
Rishikesha T Krishnan
Former Director, IIMB, Professor of Strategy
