 It's time for the first keynote session of the day. Ladies and gentlemen, the business ecosystem of today is a confluence of various moving elements, be it social, political, or regulatory. As we go deeper into the theme of today's pitch CMO Summit, Transforming Business in the Digital Age, I would like to call on stage our keynote speaker for the afternoon, Mr. Sudhanshu Vat, Group's CEO and Managing Director, Viacom 18, to share his thoughts on navigating a chaotic business environment in the new world order. May I request you all to kindly put your hands together and welcome him on stage. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, a big thank you to Anurag and you know, it was sort of, so for the introduction he gave, I don't know whether I deserve even half of that. I must say that I am in his land and inspired by him, you can see what I'm wearing. So I think, you know, I said that if you're there and you know, you've got to dress up like Anurag, also in the city of Delhi during elections. So thank you once again for inviting me. Thank you to Anurag, Naval, everyone at E4M and all you ladies and gentlemen. It's indeed my pleasure to be with you and to talk on this topic, harmonizing chaos in the new world order. First of all, it is always a pleasure to be amongst marketeers because as some of you or many of you may know that I started out as a marketeer, sales and marketing are my core areas of expertise before I jumped into general management. So I have always cherished marketing. I think it is one of the very tough assignments and a tough role because it encompasses both hard and soft. There are issues which you need to tackle at both levels and therefore that makes it that much more challenging. And indeed my pleasure. On the topic of harmonizing chaos in a new world order. So I was reflecting on the topic and I was thinking about it as to what do I talk and what do I leave behind with you. First of all, let me be very, very clear and give you the caveat that I am no expert at the new world order and everything which I tell you may or may not turn out to be true on how to harmonize chaos in the new world order. What I will however try to do is to share my perspective, share some of my reflections of having come thus far but trying to look into the future a little bit as well. And then hopefully leave you with some thought-provoking ideas and something which you can work on and maybe practice. So I think that is indeed the attempt. So reflect talking about harmonizing chaos in a new world order. The words that stand out for me most are new world order because chaos, disruption, harmonization are things we've been talking about for quite some time. I think the thing which is very dynamic and which needs to be pondered upon and thought upon is this word, the phrase called new world order. So what is this new world order? Is the new world more equal? Is the new world more open? Is the new world more democratic? Or is the new world about technology? Is the new world about energy? So there are many dimensions to each of these things which we talk about and when we think of. And there I can keep going on and talking about each of these and then I could take a lot of time trying to talk to you about what are the various facets of the new world. But I thought in the interest of time, there are three things that I'm going to focus on within that maybe ponder on one a little bit more than the other three as well. So the new world is definitely about technology. And I think it is, Anurag spoke about the entire piece and you guys are going to talk a lot about digital, about technology. So I think it is indeed about technology. So the new world is about technology. Technology and digital is transforming everything which we do in every sphere of life in ways which we've not known at pace at which we have not fathomed or thought of in the past. The other piece which is also there is this thing about energy. And I think energy or the flip side of the coin is sustainability is something which is more recent but very pertinent and indeed something which we cannot ignore. So are we therefore leaving behind sustainable, do we have sustainable solutions and are we going to leave behind earth for our children in the condition in which we had inherited it from our parents? And I think to that extent sustainability and energy being a very important component of sustainability is important. And I think these are the two aspects which are relevant and I will touch upon them a bit. The third piece which however I wanted to talk about and pick up with you is the area of equality. And therefore are we, in the new world order, are we more equal or the other way around? And I think to me this is a very singular most important thing which will define, arguably is already defining the world order and I would use the phrase inequality. And as you may know, for some of you in the audience you may have read Thomas Piketty and his seminal work about 2014-15 on capital in the 21st century where he talked about how everything which is being shaped around us is because of inequality. And his argument that basically this is going to continue to define, there were a lot of critics of him at that point in time, many economists disagreed with him but I think the relevance of that cannot be more than what it is today in our society. And to me therefore Thomas Piketty's thinking on inequality is something which sort of continues to resonate. And I was thinking about inequality not only from the facts of the piece which is inequality but also coming now as Anurag rightly pointed out at sort of you know seven years in media I have to think about inequality but not only the facts of inequality but the perception of inequality. And to me the perception of inequality is equally if not more important than the facts of inequality. And this for all of us as marketeers in this room we understand it is about what we do the changes which we bring about the facts of it but the perception of it that is equally important particularly in this profession and our ability to drive this. And reflecting on this concept of inequality I wanted to bring around three or four examples from around the world one closer home but these examples on trying to tell you how inequality and the perception of inequality is shaping everything which we are doing. Let me first pick up the example of Brexit. So if you look at Brexit what is behind what is the seminal thing behind Brexit? In my opinion of course there are several factors and there is a lot which has been written about by experts on why Brexit happened and what has happened and all that. If I was to simplify it and condense it and say that it is one thing which is important which has been there is inequality. And if as you know Britain amongst developed world is one of the most in equal is a nation which has highest inequality. So therefore and if you go by statistics 10% of Britain's actually own 31% of the country's wealth in a developed world context that is pretty high and I think that had a very important role to play. But to be honest with you this is not new. This indeed has not changed for 25 odd years. It is the same for close to about 25 years and if at all post the financial crisis of 2008 that has changed a bit in favor of making it less and equal because the losses have been more to the ones who owned a lot of wealth at that point in time. But the perception of it and the reason that our jobs are going our jobs are being taken away by people who are moving from the European Union and that something needs to be done about it and the society's becoming more unequal and I don't get the opportunities which I deserve that one single driving force led to what Brexit happened. The second one closer home let me talk about and this time flipping it around the other way around let me talk about UP elections and demonetization. If you look at the thought behind demonetization one of the arguments for demonetization was also to tackle the so-called inequality and to try and bring in some kind of equality and given opportunity and try and change and make it more transparent and move in for demonetization and as that piece happened it did have an impact on the vast, the way BJP swept the elections in UP and the reason for that simply was that I may have lost a goat but the others have lots, lot of cows and I think this is very, very important for human psychology and I think everyone the rich bashing which can then follow up from there leads to a perception that which is again seminally centered around inequality and you are trying to play the other way around. If you look at closer home to the corporate world in the corporate scenario I think I don't know whether some of you followed in one of the latest statements given by Jeff Bezos he talked about making the daily wage $15 per hour in all in Amazon and saying that can all the other retailers follow and I think that was his, this thing which is to say that we will be offering $15, $15 per hour raising the bar in a manner of speaking in the context of United States and then saying challenging can others follow and where did that stem from? That again stems from the growing perception of inequality and trying to give that basically that face, this thing saying that we'll try and make it equal and I think this therefore is the most defining thing for the new world order. Closer home in India again I'll tell you we've gone, we've sort of swung a bit on this but if you look at, if you look, if you were to go back and some of you in the room will definitely resonate with this of course, Anurag my friend and some of you others will be if you were to look at 391 India I think there was a complete, some kind of a taboo to conspicuous consumption. I think it was a different society. There were also far less choice available to people the kind of things which were there there were cues for everything which you needed to go in for whether even for buying scooters or going for telephones and so on and so forth. Post that, post the opening up of 91 things have changed quite a lot. Things have changed and the amount of choice which is available, the things which can basically move on in this, the thinking about conspicuous consumption is totally gone. So basically if you have it, you flaunt it. I think is the new mantra. I think the mantra which is actually being followed in and basically which is the classic capitalism mantra which is being followed. But once again the question which will be which is already beginning to get raised in our country and will be raised as we go forward is the same thing on inequality. What are we doing about inequality and what is it that we can do to address this? And if you again go by statistics here by the way while we are now sort of flaunting a lot of this, imagining a lot of things a lot of choices available to us. The question to ask is has inequality come down or gone up? And if at all if you look at it, if you again go by Thomas Piketty research on India this time around. So in 1980s the 10% of Indian population used to be owning about 45% of the wealth. That number, 10% of Indian population now owns close to 68% of the wealth of the country. So if at all it has gone for the worse. Now if this is indeed the way the tide is blowing and broadly if you look at these are the three things in the new world order which we as marketers should be cognizant of, one is technology and I'm sure you guys will have a lot of debate on that. The second is energy or sustainability if I was to use the broader word. And finally this theme around inequality and opportunity which is the case. What we should we as marketers do? And at this stage I would like to quote from Jimmy Dean, a claimed American singer, actor, businessman and TV anchor and some of you know him and I quote, saying I can't change the direction of the wind but I can adjust my sail to always reach my destination. So to you this is the place I want to leave you as marketers that you know we can't change the direction of the wind. The direction of the wind is the direction of the wind but we've got to go to a particular destination. We are motoring our brands, our organization in a different form and can we adjust the sail to always reach that destination. Now the answer is not very easy and I will definitely not profess that I have the answer but what I want to leave you with is a very simplistic thought or a rather simplistic thought and an idea if I could say a kernel on what we could do to tackle this, to tackle the three broad phenomena and I think fortunately they tackle all but this particular one thought which I will leave you with tackles the three big phenomena in the New World Order and that ladies and gentlemen the phrase is sharing. It is an old world phrase and I think I want to take on from where Anurag left by showing his last two slides. It's an old world phrase, it's something which we've grown up with. You know we talk to our children and we talk about sharing. Our parents had sort of shared, basically talked a lot about sharing as a society, India and particularly Asia and arguably the humankind sharing is an important virtue but somehow when we come to corporates, when we come to jobs, this is something we just forget when we come to professions, there is a taboo on sharing. You know you are very, very cagey, you don't want to share but in the New World Order ladies and gentlemen I think sharing will have an important role to play and let me give you now sign off with a few examples and I'll give you a few examples, these are top of mind examples, they're not exhaustive, these are things which I have sort of you know either experienced, touched or thought of and I'll share some of them with you. So let me first talk from the point of view of sustainability. Now if you talk of sustainability one of the big successes in Unilever as a brand has been Lipton and one of the things which Lipton has now consistently done for eight, 10 years is the Rainfair Forest Alliance in Kenya with the farmers and the entire emphasis on sustainability, on sustainable farming and being able to say that that has helped the brand to grow. So I think your ability to therefore be able to do the two goes hand in hand and contrary as it may seem I think ability to adapt more sustainable solutions share them upfront with your consumers or customers and talk about this, bring that conversation into the society is good for the brand. It's good for the brand for building the equity of the brand. It's good for the brand for building the stature and size of the brand and it is definitely very good for the business. Let me give you the second example on technology and I again stay with the theme of sharing and I think I take this in the context of organizations into partnerships. I think that's how you will share when you have partnerships. And let me give you example of something closer home at YCOM 18 here and let me talk to you about something which we did three years ago when we launched Woot. When we launched Woot, as many of you may know we are a media organization, we are storytellers. What is at the heart of our organization is content. We understand as an organization in general very little of content, very little of technology, sorry very little of engineering, very little of product and everybody basically when we went about doing Woot we partnered with 42 partners, 42 partners to launch Woot. And most people turn around including some people very close to us including people who are guiding us some people whom I work with very closely he said this will collapse. There is no way you can partner with 42 people you have no clue what you're getting into you have no idea, your people don't know anything about it and it won't work. InshaAllah let me tell you three years out we are now close to 150 million gross downloads but more importantly 55 million now closer to 55 million monthly active users and in the last financial year we delivered 100 billion video minutes on this platform. So about technology my answer to many of you is we won't learn it overnight we won't become experts on it overnight but do we need to embrace it the answer is yes is it redefining the new world order in which we are staying the answer is yes how do we then tackle it the answer is simple which I want to leave you with again it's about partnering it's about sharing and the new world is a lot about partnering and I think about sharing so I think that's the second piece and thirdly talking about inequality let me share with you a few examples on that as well which is I think at the core of everything so there is this company which is I've always thought about food companies in general and I've always thought that what if all food organizations and food brands were to dedicate a very small fraction of consumer spent in order to tackle malnourishment you see malnourishment is a reality and is something which is tears us in the face and is at the heart of some level of inequality in society in the way in which we live if all organizations all food organizations particularly could actually dedicate a small part of it wouldn't that be wonderful and as we speak there is a specialty retailer which some of you may know by the name of Box Lunch Box Lunch dedicates one free meal for every $10 spent at the retailer for every $10 spent at the retailer one free meal is provided by Box Lunch how's that I think that is absolutely wonderful and I think that is something which is eminently doable now if you look at again the other dimension of inequality which is a very very strong and hot debate today and I see a lot of ladies here sitting in the room is about the gender disparity in pay and I think the argument is that how do we tackle this because we've got to tackle it with keeping meritocracy intact that is indeed true we have to keep meritocracy intact we cannot allow meritocracy to be compromised to run efficient organizations, efficient corporations arguably well governed countries so I think in that context how do we go about doing this again a lot of experiments a lot of things which are happening it is pertinent for us to be able to do some of these things the work which is happening in UK in some spheres in this area is very good being done by certain companies I think the other thing which we will need to continue to reflect on is how do we share value across an organization across different levels of an organization to tackle inequality and I think this is a very pertinent question and a question which will need to be addressed by us as society and by all of us as marketers and finally when it comes to sharing I want to leave you and from a point of view of inequality or rather bringing some kind of equality I want to leave you with the thought last thought from my end on inverting the pyramid we've always stayed with a concept of hierarchy and a pyramid where as you rise higher you seem to be you think that people are more wise you think people have more answers people have more solutions and that's how you reward them and that's how organizations are structured that's how governments and other places are structured how about inverting that in today's day and age and again I want to leave you with a small but an interesting example something which I have shared in the past as well but I have no hesitation in sharing once again from our digital business when we all wanted to name the business which is basically now called Woot in the naming of the business we did not go to the most wise we did not go to the conventional people we opened it up to crowdsourcing and lo and behold and we opened it up far and wide and lo and behold the person who got the name was actually a 22 year old six month intern at Wacom 18 for a princely award of a round trip anywhere to the world with the name Woot and I think and then we later on so we first liked it and then we sort of you know googled it and looked what does that mean the exclamation of joy and the entire the importance of that dictionary some of us didn't even know about it so my idea in the end is to leave you with this seminal thought as you progress the day and then later in your careers and in your life is keep on reflecting on the word sharing sometimes it also means partnering or partnership I think that could help us to address the question on how do we bring basically how do we have you know, harmonizing chaos in a new world order and I think if we were to attempt to harmonize chaos in a new world order I think we have to start with the simple thought of sharing thank you ladies and gentlemen thank you for your time thank you for giving me this opportunity