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View from the top: Bhaskar Das, Executive President, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
He is one of the most dynamic and approachable media moguls in the current Indian media marketing and management landscape. Meet Bhaskar Das, the Executive President of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. India’s largest media group and owner of the world’s largest selling English broadsheet, The Times of India. His mantra to success is his belief that “learning is a never ending journey.”
With a postgrad degree in International Relations from Jadavpur University, Bhaskar subsequently completed an MBA with a specialisation in marketing from Calcutta University. Recently, he also submitted his thesis on ‘Media Planning’ as a part of the doctoral program under Pune University. A strong advocate of learning, he is an active member at industry forums and a guest faculty at Harvard Business School, MIT, IIM, and ISB among others. Bhaskar has over three decades experience in the media industry.
Bhaskar is responsible for maximising the company’s volume and value market share, by ensuring quality service and driving value innovations.
As a Board member of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., Bhaskar is responsible for maximising the company’s volume and value market share, by ensuring quality service and driving value innovations. He is also actively involved in leveraging his skill sets and is integrally engaged in the company’s strategic decisions across its businesses, part of which also deals with recruiting the best personnel for the company.
For Bhaskar, a graduate management course is like a visa for jobs, “especially since it is a threshold requirement for jobs in most countries”.
“Any education or degree imparts skill in a particular discipline. The knowledge accumulated through a structured course provides a conceptual framework that can be applied to handle future challenges”, he says. For Bhaskar, a graduate management course is like a visa for jobs, “especially since it is a threshold requirement for jobs in most countries”. He believes that overseas education offers an expansion of vista that one experiences due to the interaction with various sub-cultures emanating from the student mix.
When asked whether or not experience can ever overshadow education, he is quick to reiterate that it varies from one candidate to another. “However, a couple of years work experience renders the candidate to be in a more favourable position to be able to actually assimilate and relate the various academic concepts.” And although a graduate degree does provide an edge in the initial phase of one’s career, only a “sustained growth curve” can assure success.
“Conceptually, a management graduate should be able to fit into both vertical (i.e. within discipline) and horizontal (i.e. across disciplines) roles.”
Talking about the various roles that a management graduate can expect to execute at The Times group and other companies, Bhaskar says, “Conceptually, a management graduate should be able to fit into both vertical (i.e. within discipline) and horizontal (i.e. across disciplines) roles.” Usually, a beginner starts with a vertical role and moves up the corporate ladder. There are essentially three key roles that a management graduate needs to muster towards integrating the organization’s perspectives: visionary, cheerleader and facilitator.
At a fundamental level, the graduate courses in most universities meet with the basic requirements of the management discipline. But Bhaskar notes that universities like the Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) in India, the IVY League universities in the US such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton and Kellogg, the London School of Economics, London Business School and University of Cambridge in the UK, as well as INSEAD in France consistently generate the crème-de-la-crème of graduates. “The outputs from these universities have become ambassadors for these institutions and reinforce the perception that they are the top-ranked business schools,” he candidly confesses.
The key lesson to keep in mind is to remain a continuous learner with a “servant-leader attitude”.
A good graduate student is expected to handle various challenges in his or her career according to Bhaskar: how to delete the baggage of irrelevant experience; how to balance continuity with change; how to align with shareholders; vision; ensuring one is equipped to be equal to the task; how to attract and retain talent; and how to keep the work-force motivated and empowered with the latest knowledge so as to keep the organization shock-proof to the dynamic challenges of a changing market place. Some of which Bhaskar has learnt from his own personal and professional experiences. He says the key lesson to keep in mind is to remain a continuous learner with a “servant-leader attitude”. “The combination can take the individual and the organization quite far”, he claims.
