Arthashastra (अर्थशास्त्रम्)

Arthashastra (अर्थशास्त्रम्) was given by Kautilya, who was the political pholosopher and guide for Chandragupta Maurya during the Mauryan era. Arthashastra is a moolamantra not only for political governance but also a guptamantra for corporate management governance. The veracity of application to Kautilya's Arthashastra ranges to limitless boundaries of knowledge and learning from medicine to education to philosophy and even to contemporary management sciences. The preaching and mandates of Kautilya elevate human thinking to act beyond his sixth sense involving cognitive, affective and motor domains necessary to gain complete control over management of self and institutions.

Introduction

Please see this link to access the samskrita moolam for Kautilya's Arthashastra

Discussion

Glimpses of health and medicine in the mauryan empire Dr. D. V. Subba Reddy, - pp79,

Thus human personality (maharaja) must manifest multi-dimensional adaptive roles at different times by demonstrating extraordinary intuition, self control, vision, accurate prediction, confidence in decisions taken, combating venom attacks etc. Such qualities are no differently to be enumerated by a successful management expert.

The king is a ruler of the kingdom (a corporate leader) and as a decision maker has to be secretive about his war strategies (incubating new product developments) at the same time be offensive and defensive with enemies (corporate rivalry and competition) as the threat perception may be ensuring his survival despite enemy attacks (presence of substitutes and complementary products and disruptive technologies). Such preaching are of the nature of Gupta Mantra.

The central force of a political architecture is its legal system and the king is a protector and preserver of the law but most definitely not its creator which means his power is sanctioned and limited by law. Be the powers vested, the actions of CEOs of companies are governed by the Companies Act , Income Tax Act, SEBI Regulations, and the likes of these. When no confidence motions (equivalent to dethroning a king) are passed against CEOs in the U.S, his kingship is challenged, by the board of directors, for non-performance as envisioned for the company and customers. This establishes the temporal sovereignty of the CEO where the Varjasva Takat (Ultimate power) of the power owner is called into question resulting in dethroning the leader. Recent real-life corporate citations are available to corroborate this. This proves the temporal sovereign status of the corporate leader.

Corporate Competition, Competitive Forces and Rivalry While Arthashastra can be considered a bible describing the methodology of supreme governance in a political architecture, such tenets can be applied to corporate governance too. Michael .E. Porter has suggested competition from rival firms to be the biggest force attacking business as much as rivalry forces (Shamashastry 7/614) and their ability to ruin kingdoms has been elaborately dealt in portions of the dossier.

Creating a B-Line Leader/ Corporate Succession Plan /Successor Most corporate houses lack a sound legacy in leadership though the forefathers may have given birth to a legacy. The newer generation and their thought process do not sync with the value systems and organization culture resulting in conflicting views while decision making on matters relating to policy creation, execution, employee-employer relationship, administrative inefficiency and ultimately financial losses. The new blood introduced in the corporate vein obviously lacks expertise, competence and wisdom to learn and earn on whatever has been created, protected and preserved thus far. To enable successive generations to carry out the responsibilities of running a business empire with the same grit, ingenuity, and crafty intelligence demands i. Identifying such a capable body and mind ii. Constant training of such a body and mind, iii Finally creating emotional and psychological immunity to business and personal adversaries so that the mind and body of the individual (SS pp 89/108) is well prepared to take up the associated challenges during one's corporate engagements.

Corporate Vision:

Offensive and Defensive Strategies Corporate aggressive strategies are sometimes surgical and this mostly happens during a disruptive innovation.

Covert and Overt strategies

Brand Building and Immortality A few corporate brands are immortal especially the ones like Lifebuoy, Lipitor, Digene Antacid, Dettol, Colgate and likewise. The creation of such brands give a competitive edge to companies irrespective of the new arrival of substitutes or complementary products or new technologies. Such products due to their credible and stable performance, dethrone the status of any competing brand attempting to fragment the consumer base. An immortal brand is a consequence of long years of trials, experiments and pseudo-scientific nurturing.

New Product Development and Incubation Companies are mortal but brands are immortal. Some brands are cash cows and some are stars, a few are question marks. Certain brands have a 'Pareto effect' on the company's bottom line. These are the cash cows, They generate maximum revenue for the firm at the lowest possible cost. The question marks are those product decisions which the company takes either in favour or disfavour of its continuity as they involve huge resources and costs to revive. The cash cows compensate for all these laggard products. Immortal brands are a consequence of several alpha, beta and gamma trials and testing. The product is nurtured phase by phase and all the lacunae is addressed to get an irreplaceable level of product acceptance. These efforts entail both scientific and management researchers, to accurately map customer unmet needs with those product characteristics that it sustains as an uncontested choice for masses and ages to follow.