Business Prophet

BusinessWeek posted an article about CK Prahalad, very interesting ...

For his next book, due in fall, 2006, Prahalad is assembling case studies of Indian companies that could spawn entirely new ways to think about conducting business. Fast-growing telecom operators such as Bharti, Reliance, and Tata, for example, are profitably selling cellular service for as little as 2 cents a minute "even though they must buy the same hardware as Western companies," he says. Now they're preparing to launch broadband TV, data, and voice for around $30 a month -- about a third of the cost of such packages in the U.S. Bangalore's Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital charges a flat fee of only $1,500 for heart bypass surgery that would cost 50 times that in the U.S. and operates on hundreds of infants each year for free. Yet it is highly profitable, has no debt, and claims a higher success rate than most U.S. hospitals. Narayana also profitably insures 2.5 million poor Indians against serious illness for 11 cents a month per person.

Low wages alone can't account for such price gaps with the West, Prahalad contends. The real secret is ingenious cost-cutting practices, such as extreme reliance on outsourcing, novel use of technology, and making the most of capital investment. "These are radical innovations," Prahalad says, many of which can be adapted to the U.S.