 Mr. Prasad Chandran, Chairman and Managing Director, BASF India Ltd, Head of BASF South Asia was here in ASB to talk with us on topics like Matrix management in international business, Business ethics and Sustainable development.
BASF, a Fortune 100 company, is the world’s largest chemical company. It is voted as the ‘most admired’ chemical company in the world based on various parameters like innovation, role to society, global competitiveness of products and based on aspects of long term sustainability in the chemical industry. Mr. Chandran explained to us the large scale of operations of BASF across the globe. They were the original inventors of fundamental products like ammonia, nitric acid and many more specialised chemical products and processes. Recently the company was voted as the best company to work for.
The first topic Mr. Chandran dealt with was Matrix management. He explained about the organisational structure of BASF and how it was geographically divided. Each country has Chief Executives for its business divisions and functions and all these Chief Executives report to the country head. A similar kind of organisational structure exists at the geographical level where the neighbouring countries are grouped together. The advantage of such a matrix organisation is that, such a structure brings together the best experiences from the industry. It also pulls together the best knowledge about market and technicalities, which aid the company’s growth in the long run. Through such a set-up everything is reported and accounted for and the top management is able to keep proper checks and balances.
Mr. Chandran said companies should be reactive and proactive in decision-making. As the competition is very fierce in today’s world, a company needs to be always ahead of others to succeed. For a trans-national company like BASF, the matrix management has helped them in making the optimal use of their resources.
The second topic that was highlighted on was regarding business ethics. He appreciated ASB for having a mission of imparting value-based education. The importance of the business ethics course that we undergo was highly reinforced on us by Mr. Chandran from his experiences in the corporate world.
Values give us a competitive advantage and we should maximise on it. Each stakeholder has different expectations from the company. In today’s world the customers decide and the power lies with them so the companies have to operate on a global basis. Indian companies need to follow international standards in order to be competitive. To be successful they need to be high on integrity and be value based to continue business in the long run.
As students we have a major role to play. Mr. Chandran asked us to stand by our values. The consequences could be any thing but finally we are answerable to our conscience. He feels that all of us have excellent opportunities out there but we have to uphold our values and learnings from our institution.
Finally Mr. Chandran explained to us, the framework of sustainable development that BASF follows:
This framework is based on three pillars, which are Economy, Ecology and Society. BASF contributes to the economy by building chemical plants in several places. It is a AAA rated company and has been voted as the most honest tax payers. BASF undertakes various measures for ecological safety and development. Every BASF plant follows German standards. Every facility, godowns etc comply with high standards of safety. Not only plants but also even the staff and employees welfare is also taken care of by regular health checkups. BASF undertakes many social projects as a part of their society development initiative. One such project that they are carrying out is the Million Miles project. The mission of this project is to fight corruption in the society. Actually this project was started based on the suggestion given to Mr.Chandran by the then Prime Minister Sri A B Vajpayee. They first ran the project for three years within their company itself so as to make sure every employee believed in it and worked for it. Sadbhavana is another social project that BASF undertakes for the benefit of women and children. BASF has labs specially designed for children. In these Kids-labs children conduct small experiments in chemistry by which they learn the subject and become interested in chemistry and science.
In the end Mr.Chandran answered the queries of many ASB students and spread across a message that we need to be very clear about our values, vision and mission in life. We need to uphold them in order to succeed in the long run. Wherever we go we have to work for the organisation so as to make it a better place for all. After his talk all of us were left in deep thoughts and now we feel more proud that we study in such an institution that always stands for its values. |
