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On 17 July 2011, bollywood stars and business leaders laid bricks and tiles at London Business School, building a symbolic house to represent the 100,000 houses that will be built in India by 2015.The 'Build a Home - Brick by Brick' event marked the start of Habitat for Humanity's IndiaBUILDS campaign in Great Britain, a new fundraising drive to support families currently living in substandard houses in India.

Professor Nirmalya Kumar welcomed guests to London Business School and Mrs. Rajashree Birla, chairperson of Habitat for Humanity's IndiaBUILDS campaign, and Director of the Aditya Birla Group, talked about the importance of the initiative: "50 million families in India do not have a safe roof over their heads. IndiaBUILDS represents a quantum leap in Habitat for Humanity India's aspirations. We want to go from having built 40,000 houses to date, to more than 100,000 by 2015. This London event is the first step in getting people's attention to make this happen." Bollywood star Ranganathan 'Maddy' Madhavan also shared his reasons for supporting Habitat for Humanity and the IndiaBUILDs campaign. Watch the event.

Phanish Puranam, Professor of Strategic and International Management, was the co-organizer of the first ISB India Strategy Research Conference held at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India in July 2011. The conference featured selected papers from faculty from around the world and will be an annual event aimed at improving management research capabilities in India.

The ninth annual India Business Forum was held on 19 May 2011 at London Business School. The theme of this year's event was Envisioning India's New Landscape and speakers included business leaders and London Business School faculty.

Professor Phanish Puranam was a panelist at the Strategic Management Society's research workshop conducted at IIM, Kolkota, India in February 2011.

India Inside by Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam
Thanks to its ability to innovate, the developed world will always have a distinct advantage over the developing world, right? Not according to India business experts and London Business School faculty, Professor Nirmalya Kumar and Professor Phanish Puranam. In India Inside, the authors draw on the latest research to show how developing-world giant India is already turning this assumption on its head—often in ways invisible to the developed world.

Through extensive interviews with executives from numerous companies including Infosys, Ranbaxy, and TPI Advisory Services, the authors unveil the great push toward innovation already happening in India—in areas including process management, B2B services, and R&D. In particular, the book illuminates Indian companies' growing ability to innovate consumer products that are compact, low-cost, efficient, and robust in the face of harsh environmental conditions. The authors' analysis makes clear that this "Nano effect"—low-cost innovation that satisfies demanding and budget-minded customers—will ultimately deliver consumer-branded products for the developed world.

India Inside not only provides a wake-up call for companies competing in the developed world. It also offers a clear-eyed view of both the challenges and opportunities facing multinationals seeking new sources of innovation in the future.

released November 2011, Harvard Business Press

Have you restructured for global success? (Harvard Business Review October 2011)
Nirmalya Kumar, Professor of Marketing and Phanish Puranam, Professor of International Strategic Management
It takes more than localizing your customer-facing business to win in emerging markets. Read the full article (please note that only the first 500 downloads are complimentary)

The first collection of case studies from the Centre's Case Study Development Initiative will be published as a monograph by Palgrave Macmillan in December 2011. The cases focus on the foreign acquisitions made by Indian companies in the last ten years and the monograph is edited by Suseela Yesudian.

Information, Supply Chains and Price Dispersion: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India
Kamalini Ramdas, Professor of Management Science and Operations, Chris Parker and Nicos Savva, Assistant Professor of Management Science and Operations
Abstract: Gathering information about market prices can be a costly process leading to price dispersion. Access to mobile phones has been shown to reduce geographic price dispersion for agriculture commodities traded in rural markets. We extend this research by examining whether providing regular, reliable and unbiased information via text message to interested parties can provide for further reductions in price dispersion, over and above the effect observed with access to mobile phones. India's wholesale markets for agricultural produce provide a rich environment in which to empirically test these hypotheses. In October 2007, Thomson Reuters introduced a text message (SMS) based information service in India called Reuters Market Light (RML) which provides crop related information to market participants on a daily basis. Using a natural experiment where bulk text messages were unexpectedly banned across India for twelve days, this paper first measures the effect of the service provided by RML on geographic price dispersion. We observe a statistically and economically significant 7.7% increase in price dispersion during the text message ban. When the RML price information service is restored, price dispersion returns to pre-ban levels. Price dispersion increases during the ban are largest in areas where RML has the largest number of subscribers, lending further evidence to our claim that the loss of RML price information is causing an increase in price dispersion and demonstrating that even relatively low levels of subscriber penetration have impacted price formation in the Indian agriculture markets. Price dispersion increases are concentrated in crops with medium levels of perishability and are seen both at levels of the supply chain that are closer to farmers and those that are closer to consumers. Our research provides evidence that fair and unbiased information can be beneficial in creating more efficient agriculture markets, even with low levels of penetration. Our results can help information providers understand where their services provide the greatest gains, and can also help NGOs and international aid organizations better decide how to allocate funds aimed at improving welfare in developing countries.

Developing Electronic Markets in Low-Tech Environments: India's Agriculture Markets
Bruce Weber, Professor of Information Management, Management Science and Operations and Chris Parker
Abstract: Research has identified the role of information technology (IT) in creating fair and efficient markets. Studies generally examine B2B and B2C market designs in settings where technology is already prevalent among market participants. Less well understood is IT's ability to enhance market efficiency when participants have minimal IT in their operations, and existing market processes are manual. In this setting, how does a price and market support system enable markets to operate better? In 2007, Thomson Reuters introduced a simple text (SMS) information service to agricultural market participants in India called Reuters Market Light (RML). We find that RML has made regional 'mandis' more efficient, and empowered farmers to sell crops more profitably. The implication for e-markets research is that a low-tech infrastructure can support a price information system and generate measurable benefits. Key factors underpinning RML's impact are standardization on low-end mobile phones and short customizable messages that raise market quality with low bandwidth.

Emerging Economies as Sources of Innovation: Evidence from Semiconductor Patents of Indian and Chinese R&D Subsidiaries of US Firms
Phanish Puranam, Professer of Strategic and International Management, Gerard George, Imperial College London and Tufool Alnuaimi, Imperial College London
Abstract: The dramatic increase in the number and activity of R&D subsidiaries of developed country multinational corporations in emerging economies like India and China has raised a vigorous debate: does this signal a loss of competitive advantage in innovation for the developed economies, or do these Asian subsidiaries not really compete in terms of the quality and impact of their efforts? Our research, based on matched sample analysis, suggests that R&D subsidiaries of US firms in India and China developed semiconductor patents of comparable internal impact to those developed by the subsidiaries of the same MNC in the US. While patents filed by the Indian and Chinese subsidiaries had higher impact within the MNC when they included inventors from outside these countries, we find that this cannot be attributed to superior foreign skills substituting for inferior local skills, but rather reflect complementarity between them. These results suggest that emerging economies like India and China are indeed becoming credible alternatives to the developed economies as places in which multinational corporations may locate high quality inventive effort, at least in some sectors.
Read the paper

The paper won the prize for the best scholarly paper of the International Management division at Academy of Management 2011 annual meeting.

Business Groups and Capital Markets in India: Substitutes or Complements?
Phanish Puranam, Professer of Strategic and International Management, Professor Raveendra Chitoor, ISB Hyderabad and Professor Prashant Kale, University of Michigan, Ann Harbor
Abstract: We extend the research on the effects of affiliation to business groups (BGs) by examining whether institutional quality and the performance effects of BG affiliation are substitutes or compliments. We argue that while BGs may well have emerged as a consequence of weak institutional environments, the relationship between the two may be one of complementarity rather than substitution. We develop the argument in detail for the complementarity between capital market efficiency and BG affiliation effects. Specifically, we argue that public listing of a BG firm in a stock exchange is a form of selective intervention that infuses elements of market control in a hierarchy, thus improving monitoring and performance incentives, and will positively moderate the relationship between BG affiliation and performance. Further, the performance effects of BG affiliation for listed firms strengthen as capital market efficiency improves. We test our arguments empirically using an unbalanced panel dataset of 10453 BG and non-BG firms from India during the post-liberalization period of 1994-2009 and report supporting evidence in a battery of estimations. A key implication of our study is that BGs indeed may be here to stay despite improvements in their ambient economic institutions.
Read the paper

In February 2011 Professor Nirmalya Kumar and Professor Phanish Puranam caused a stir amongst business school academics and commentators in India with their article Taking stock of Indian management research in The Economic Times. The discussion continued with follow-up articles by Professor Kumar, including on how Indian Business Schools still display pre-reforms mentality and how B-schools have sprawling campuses but churn out MBA graduates below their capacity. A debate ensued and various articles and blogs were posted in response, including Publish or Perish , The Curious Case of Research, The business of management research at Indian b-schools, B-schools don't live up to hype and Land wastage at IIMs.

The behaviour of Indian youth as a consumer was one of many points discussed by Nirmalya Kumar in an interview with 4Ps Business & Marketing magazine in February 2011. Read how marketers need to rethink best practices.

With consumer focus on 'value' rather than on 'cheap', Nirmalya Kumar dicussed how private labels in India are about margin enhancement rather than differentiation in a Q&A for Business Standard in February 2011.

What's the next big thing in marketing? Nirmalya Kumaranswers this question and others in his interview with The Hindu, Business Line in March 2011.

In March 2011 the billionaires issue of Forbes Asia profiled Kumar Managalam Birla, Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group. Professor Nirmalya Kumar commented on the Last Man Standing.

In a feature in April 2011 on the takeover of British companies by Indian ones in The Sunday Times, Nirmalya Kumar discussed the notion of dare to try, the Indian way.

In July 2011 Nirmalya Kumar considered in Outlook Business the challenges faced by Indian companies making foreign acquisitions and how post-merger integration is crucial.

In an article on how Mahindra Sees India's First Cult Brand Aided by Ssangyong SUVs in Bloomberg in July 2011, Nirmalya Kumar considered the new generation of Indian family business executives.

Nirmalya Kumar commented on the state of the Indian and Chinese markets in a column on how Indian automotive companies are faring in China in The Financial Express, August 2011.

Media coverage of the anti-corruption protests in India during the summer was extensive and one of the questions asked was Jan Lokpal Bill: Does Anna Hazare have the problem-solving skills? Nirmalya Kumar shared his thoughts with The Economic Times in August 2011.

India bids to be Africa's 'new best friend'. Nirmalya Kumar noted the changing attitude of Indian politicians towards Africa in August 2011 on CNN's Marketplace Africa.