Ram Charan

Jeff Bezos built Amazon on one principle: the law of increasing returns.

Most people know the law of diminishing returns: growth slows as you expand.

But in a software-defined business, the opposite happens.
The more people use it, the more data is created.
The more data, the more value.
The more value, the greater the market cap.

That’s why Amazon could grow 35% per year and still expand margins and cash flow. The machine runs it.

When your marginal cost approaches zero, you create exponential returns.
That’s the foundation of trillion-dollar companies.

Watch my full keynote to see how Jeff Bezos used this model and what every CEO can learn from it: https://lnkd.in/e_w_hc77

#Leadership #DigitalTransformation #SoftwareDefinedBusiness #Innovation #BusinessStrategy #Execution

The one question I am often asked is: from all your years of teaching and consulting, what have you seen that makes someone a true leader?

Over 60 years of working with CEOs, boards, and managers around the world, I’ve come across many universal truths. In this video, I present three of them.

What do I mean by universal truths?
These are patterns you can observe and verify again and again, across industries, geographies, and time.

1️⃣ Leaders get the behaviors they tolerate.
What you permit becomes your culture.

2️⃣ Leaders who grow the capability of others, grow themselves.
When you kindle curiosity and ambition in people, you expand their imagination and yours.

3️⃣ Every few decades, a new tool changes the world.
Electricity did. The iPhone did. Now it’s AI.
Learn it. Use it. It will multiply your capability to think and execute.

Practice these habits daily, no matter who you are, and you will master leadership.

#Leadership #DigitalTransformation #Execution #Strategy #Innovation

Agility = resilience + adjustment.

Resilience is the capacity to withstand shocks. At the same time, you must be able to make adjustment: change.

It begins with the top team. If the CEO and senior leaders (say, a dozen of us) are prepared to absorb shocks and make rapid adjustments, the rest of the organization will follow.

Do rehearsals. Map the likely adversities and the emerging opportunities. Sports teams practice. Nations run war games. Business should too.

#Leadership #Agility #Resilience #Strategy #Execution #BusinessWisdom

Everyone is talking about AI. But too many are lost in the vocabulary and not the value.

Take the mystery out of it.
AI is not magic. It’s applied intelligence built on data, mathematics, and repetition.
Start with the basics. That’s where every transformation truly begins.

Here are the three fundamentals I ask every leader to master before chasing complexity.

#AI #DigitalTransformation #Leadership #Execution

How many of you buy on Amazon or Flipkart? How many of you watch Netflix?
You and I are using data, generating data, consuming AI every day.

But do we know what AI really is?
Take the letter “I” out of AI: that’s intelligence.

Humans used intelligence long before machines. We gathered data, gained knowledge, and innovated together.
Now, machines do the same, but at scale.

Your mind can handle maybe four parameters.
A machine can handle 179 billion.
That’s the difference. That’s the extension of human capability.

So, take the mystery out of AI.
Don’t get hung up on digitization. Master the basics.

#Leadership #ArtificialIntelligence #FutureOfWork #Data #Execution #Technology #Innovation

Honored to be named to the Thinkers50 Coaching Legends 2025.

Gratitude to the institutions, CEOs, boards, and teams I’ve worked with over the years. The mandate remains the same: see reality, decide with clarity, execute with discipline, and build enduring institutions.

To know more, read the release here: https://lnkd.in/eQmg2qvW

Digitization is not about paperwork or compliance. That is the low-hanging fruit.

The real opportunity is across the value chain:
🔹 In operations: manufacturing, quality control, process flows.
🔹 In procurement: where 60% of costs lie in materials and vendor inputs.
🔹 At the front end:  where every consumer or patient interaction generates new data.

Digitization means data coming out of every step, processed, reused, recycled.

#Leadership #Digitization #ValueChain #Execution #BusinessStrategy #Technology

Everyone talks about building a strong culture. Very few do it with discipline.

My conversation with N. R. Narayana Murthy during ETMasterclass reinforced something simple: enduring companies are built on principles that are lived every day.

Here are the Legendary Narayana Murthy’s 6 principles:

1. Respect for every individual
2. Leadership by example
3. Habits that speak louder than words
4. Principle: Ideation Day
5. The knowledge “nuggets” database
6. Make new technologies a badge of honor

They are operating habits. They shape behavior, develop leaders, and build the future.

Swipe through to see how each principle works in practice.

#Leadership #Culture #Execution #Innovation #Technology #ETMasterclass #Infosys #NarayanaMurthy #RamCharan

The Future of Leadership - Shaping Talent, Not Waiting for It

Last week, I asked where digital ambition fades most in your organization.

Most of you said: in execution and during decision-making.
That’s where energy leaks.
But it can be fixed if leaders apply discipline and rhythm.

Here’s what works:
→ Lead it yourself: The CEO must own digital, not delegate it to the COO.
→ Build full-time cross-functional teams: Part-time ownership kills momentum.
→ Decide fast, review faster. Short cycles, clear metrics, weekly reviews.
→ Fix the data architecture early. Clean, usable data drives every decision.
→ Define customer impact first. Then design the process around it.

Digital transformation fails in silence. It thrives when leadership time, data, and execution align.

I share how companies like Walmart, Amazon and Larsen & Toubro turned these principles into sustained digital growth.

🎥 Watch it here: 
Part 1: https://lnkd.in/eayUSQg9
Part 2: https://lnkd.in/e_w_hc77

#Leadership #DigitalTransformation #Execution #Strategy