Adapt - Harit Nagpal - Review

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Harit Nagpal has been the CEO of Tata Play over the last 13 years and spent four decades of his work experience in B2C segments with companies ranging from Vodafone, Marico, Pepsi and Lakme. He has tried to pick 10 case studies pertaining to B2C segments, created fictional leaders who drove their respective business entities, narrate unique problem statements in each of the case studies and finally an adaptive element that brought in a reliable solution. At the end of each business story there are ten checkpoints that Harit expects every reader to answer with earnestness, mostly in the binary yes or no responses. 

Let me touch upon the case studies that were interesting, the first one that captured my attention was the storyline of how a newly recruited CEO of a leading AC manufacturing unit in Malaysia, was initially in shock to know that their entity lagging behind at 4th place after having been pioneers in AC business for over  a decade. The CEO breaks down the problem statement, cuts the clutter coming from customer support team, categories the whole list of post sales issues and even found a way to overcome post sales servicing part even during COVID period. 

The second interesting case study highlighted the drawbacks of young talents who bring in a lot of zeal during the early stages of a start up but pay a heavy price due to their novice nature of handling complex B2C segment like FMCG. Harit beautifully highlights the importance of classifying their customer segment, evolving nature of the respective customer segment with progression of their age buckets, price vs perceived value and competitive product positioning. Needless to state that understanding the fundamentals of a problem and gauging the undiscovered roadblock can constitute daunting challenges.

The idea of Harit's book is to draw-out a broad framework on how to approach a certain range of business problems related to B2C segment. I must admit the questions at the end of each fictional business story would help a real life entrepreneur or business leader deconstruct challenging components in their own respective firms.

On the flip side, many story-lines mentioned in the book appeared too naive and superficial to ignite the interest of serious business leader. That's one of the drawbacks of creating fictional business stories to provide framework for real life entities. Overall an average book which can resonate highly with aspiring entrepreneurs out of college while it can prove to be a damp squib for the seasoned ones.

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