Overview

Gandhar Oil, the Indian white oil major, made its stock market debut in November 2023, listing at a whopping 76% premium. However, by July 2024, its share price was trading at around 35% below the listing price. The key reason for the decline? Delays in import shipments caused by the Houthis, an Iran-backed group, violently disrupting shipping in the Red Sea in support of Hamas in its war with Israel in Gaza. Geopolitics had disrupted supply chains and created a major logistics problem for the company. These developments significantly increased the shipping and other associated costs. The sharp decline in profitability and depressed market expectations of earnings growth resulted in several foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and domestic institutional investors (DFIs) exiting the stock in a jiffy.

In another part of the world, the major Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel faces significant hurdles in pursuing a $15 billion deal to acquire the iconic 123-year-old US steel despite receiving regulatory approvals from everyone except the US regulatory authorities. The reasons are the bipartisan consensus in opposing a foreign company taking over a major US steel firm, national security considerations, and fears of job losses by the powerful United Steelworkers (USW). Nippon Steel has pledged to move its U.S. headquarters to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel is based, to win support from the USW. It is uncertain if Nippon Steel will be able to make the acquisition, given the growing uncertainty over the November Presidential elections in the U.S.

Both cases amplify the growing impact of geopolitical developments on business and business strategy. There are business risks over the war in Ukraine. There are supply chain and cost impacts with events in the Red Sea and the war in the Middle East. There are emerging tensions in the Indo-Pacific due to China’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Foreign policy, geopolitics, and business are now inextricably intertwined. Discussions and analyses of these issues and their impact on economic growth, corporate and business strategy, trade, FDI, FTAs, etc. are now vital to boardrooms in India and the globe.

Understanding, assessing, and analysing the impact of geopolitical and geo-economic dynamics is now crucial to corporate and business strategy, risk management, supply chain/procurement planning, marketing, etc. Emerging geopolitical and geo-economic contours could also be a source of arbitrage opportunities that only a dynamic and analysis-driven corporation can leverage to the maximum extent.

It is not just leading global corporations like Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Microsoft who have recognised the need to analyse these risks and leverage opportunities in a politicised and uncertain global marketplace. Indian corporates are also grappling with the problem of navigating these risks and have realised the need for in-house geopolitical and geo-economic expertise to analyse and manage emerging complexities.

As the Indian economy grows with deeper geopolitical links across the globe, Indian corporates seek to widen their global footprint the skills and expertise necessary to assess, navigate, and manage the dynamics of these risks and opportunities are crucial across boardrooms, CEOs, COOs, and top management.

IIM-Indore is now offering a three-day executive education programme to sensitise and raise awareness in the Indian corporate sector on the need to develop resilient leaders and strategic thinkers equipped with an informed understanding of geopolitics and geo-economics to enhance managerial decision-making and to help corporate leaders and managers anticipate and deal more effectively with global uncertainty. It aims to hone decision-maker’s stakeholder and risk management capabilities by understanding businesses’ dynamic geopolitical and geo-economic ecosystems. The programme is designed for those corporate organisations operating across multiple geographies or dependent on global supply chains and aspiring to expand their footprint in foreign markets. The programme will significantly benefit businesses dealing with Oil & Gas, machinery, infrastructure, automotive, hi-tech industries, renewables and power, technology, and information products and services, and, indeed, across all manufacturing sectors. The program will help organisations prepare for significant geopolitical changes and strengthen their political muscles in the coming years.

Objectives

Objectives and Learning Outcomes:

1. Assessing risks via frameworks that can improve political risk management, facilitating managerial understanding of geopolitical factors impacting business outcomes to enhance enterprise resilience
2. Revisiting the cost-benefit analyses of ‘leaner, longer and far-flung’ supply chains provides practical insights to identify and manage supply chain risks arising from unanticipated geopolitical shocks and strengthen political muscle
3. Deciphering trends in globalisation and engaging in constructive analysis and stakeholder management to help managers identify emerging sources of geopolitical and geo-economic friction to enable organisations to deal with uncertainty
4. Understanding and appreciating future trends at the intersection of ‘geopolitics, geo-economics, technology, and global markets’
5. Developing insights and strategic foresight by identifying change drivers and enabling participants to inspire and affect change
6. Understanding the contours of emerging events across geopolitics and geo-economics insofar as they impact business

Content

• Geopolitics, geo-economics, and the corporation with a focus on issues like trade and commodities, especially the drivers that impact commodity pricing
• Supply chain risks and currency management
• Deciphering arbitrage opportunities, M&A strategies
• Globalisation, de-globalisation, and re-globalisation
• Economic/trade wars, tech wars with a focus on Russia and China, Ukraine war and emerging tensions in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, and the impact on international business
• Disruptions in global supply chains and the emergence of regional value chains
• The China question: Decoupling, de-risking, and opportunity
• Environment and social governance, climate change and sustainability

For Whom

Methodology

Enquiry and Registrations

Management Development Programmes (MDP) Office

Indian Institute of Management Indore
Prabandh Shikhar, Rau-Pithampur Road
Indore 453556, Madhya Pradesh, INDIA

Email : mdp@iimidr.ac.in
Tel. : +91-731-2439750, 2439752, 2439753, 24397544
Fax : +91-731-2439800