When you meet corporate India’s executives, their suppliers, their customers, the vendors who sell their products, you can see a lot of disconnect.

Here is my (completely unsolicited) advice to the people who meet Corporate India:

a. It may sound difficult, but do not laugh at their ‘Corporate Vision’, ‘Corporate Mission’ and words like ‘monetize the idea’, ‘creating cash’, ‘some of our employees work from home’ , etc. It is a serious part of corporate India’s culture.

b. If you think Corporate India’s main aim is to create value for the shareholder, think again. There are corporate presentation which clearly are for fiefdom building, creating size, venture funding pressure, ‘hoping market cap will go up’ , building market share, India growth story,….etc. if you need to get work done from a presentation like this, do not scoff at them. If they are selling to you ask them to start from slide 22.

c. If you think you can sound wise because you are over 40, perish the thought. Their interpretation is simple: Your best is behind you.

d. If you are a rich dad and believe in having many ‘cash value assets’ you are fighting a generation which has been brought up on ‘show-off assets’ so do not sound judgemental, if their view matters to you.

e. Going out for a smoke is old fashioned. ‘Cuppa Chai cutting’ is a much in as in as Latte – but the venue has changed from the Udupi to Barista that is all.

f. Do not be skeptical – companies are more optimistic than they were earlier. Look at the market capitalization game. The fund manager is optimistic, the entrepreneur is optimistic, the vendor, the employee, etc. are all optimistic. So do not go and crib about stickiness of the customer, profitability, cash flow,….it will all happen. So what if Keynes said “In the long run we are all dead”. Today long-term in any business is 3 years – by then the MD would have gone to a better job elsewhere…

g. Do not give unsolicited advice – it means nobody is paying for your advice anyway….ha cheap is bad syndrome !! 🙂