This is the text of the convocation address video by Kumaramangalam Birla, Chairman of Aditya Birla Group, broadcast at NID Heritage Campus on December 7, 2008.

Governing council members, Mr. Succena, Faculty, Graduating Students, Ladies and Gentlemen. First and foremost, let me apologize for not being there with you in person. Keen as I was to visit your school, one of India’s finest institutions, unfortunate circumstances have compelled me to stay away. As a start, let me state quite frankly that I envy all of you who can draw, paint and design. Sadly, I wasn’t born with the kind of talent that you have but I do have great admiration for your skills. And after years in business I do know that good design is not only good for business, it positively impacts the way we live.

When I took over at the Group, there were two people, two men among others who really inspired me – Steve Jobs of Apple Computers and Akio Morita, the cofounder of Sony. Both of them are survivors who braved tragedies to come out strong. And interestingly for you, their most important ally was good design. Let me tell you two stories from their lives that inspired me. Steve Jobs dropped out of college and ended up attending a calligraphy class purely out of interest. He obviously didn’t know at that time, that ten years later when he designed the first Macintosh, he would incorporate all of that into the Mac. The Mac as we know was the first computer with beautiful typography. It had multiple typefaces and proportionately spaced fonts. So if it was not for Steve Jobs interest in graphic arts, we would not have computers looking the way they do today. If you work anywhere in the graphic arts – advertising, design, photography, product design or even jewelery design and architecture, the person who profoundly changed the way you work is Steve Jobs. I’m sure those of you who work on Mac or use an iPod will agree with me. The other is Akio Morita. He started Sony in a bombed out headquarters after World War 2. Realizing long before others that design would be the key to success in the future, he gave his designers a leading role in his organization, and look at the rewards that they have brought in. In short, what I mean to say is, that a lot of the companies I admire have great design at their core. And today more and more companies across the world are realizing this and design is finally getting its due.

So what really is the role of the designer today? The role of design and the designer in today’s business environment has changed. The historical role that the designer had was that of being a beautifier at the end of the value chain. “Hey thats my great idea. Come and make it look good.” That’s what the big inventors condescendingly said. While designers still added tremendous aesthetics and appeal that went a long way in reversing the products desirability and value, it was still only a peripheral role. Fortunately for me, for you and for the world the role of design and designers has since undergone a drastic change. Let us take a look at the evolved role of the designer today.

Gone are the days when designers were treated as mere beautifiers; people who were called in as a mere after-thought, simply to add the final fit and polish. Gone are those days when in the 1990s, industries like consumer electronics and packaged goods, treated design as a later stage add-on. Today companies look on designers as ideators – professionals who are at the core of the business and involved in all aspects of the business right from the start up to the finish. Hence its important for you to be aware and accept that the company and the people you will work for, will expect you to play a larger role in the organization. What this also means is that you will get a lot more important and at the end of the day, you will have the greater satisfaction of a job well done.

Moving forward, what really are the vehicles, parameters and requirements for a new-age organization to excel in? It needs at the outfit a strong and cohesive image and identity. With that in mind, it need to get its product, people, processes and the environment to flow in sync with the image that it has created for itself. Let me illustrate how design today can play a central role in each of these critical requirements by taking a few examples from the Aditya Birla Group.

Building the image and identity of a company is the foremost part of design management. The graphic communication or visual identity of a company contributes significantly to its potential. Twelve years ago, the Aditya Birla Group, as a cohesive entity, did not exist. As in, there was no one strong brand identity tying all the group companies together. What we hadn’t checked were many companies and diverse industries, each of whom had their own logos and their own established identities. The common man and even some stake-holders did not even know that these were Aditya Birla Group companies. This meant that the Group were not reaping the rewards and equities from these companies and at the same time companies were not reaping the equity of being a part of the Aditya Birla Group. Hence was felt the need for a strong brand identity that would unify the company under one banner – The Aditya Birla Group’s banner. As far as the stake-holders were concerned, we also had to change perceptions of the Aditya Birla Group. Considering all of this, we decided it was time for the Aditya Birla conglomerate to re-group, re-focus and re-position. We developed a whole branding strategy with key long term objectives were to inspire confidence amongst investors and share holders, retain and attract quality talent, boost employee morale and transform ABG into a well known, recognized, high value corporate brand not just in India, but across the world. Designing our logo was the first step in the communication plan and it helped us lay the foundation for all future brand building.

We christened our logo – Aditya, the rising sun. Aditya also stands for Aditya Birla, the name of our founder. It also means the sun in sanskrit and even as the son which is after the world, it is a universal symbol – a symbol of positivity, life, growth, prosperity and leadership – all the things that we stand for in the Aditya Birla Group. Take a look at our logo. The sun rises over two circles. The inner circle is the internal universe of the group. On the other hand, the outer circle is the external universe of opportunities. The inner beams converge to form a focused core and the outer beams depict the brightness and the expanse of the sun. The logo depicts energy, solidity, vision, progress and of course, our Group’s omnipresent spirit. The next step was to carry the logo across to our group companies and therefore create a synergy. This was not as simple as it seems since a number of companies had an already established visual identity of their own – companies such as Grasim and Hindalco. We had to synergize the group logo and the company logo without compromising on the equity our group companies have earned over the years. This is where the role of design was crucial.

The next task was to change the perceptions of the Group, both internally and externally though communication that respected one Group. This began with the creation of a Brand Identity Style Guide which was given to all our companies to follow, after which we sought to change perceptions internally and externally through multiple communication interfaces; be it to top managers, share holders, employees, investors or even to the public at large. We then followed this up with our mass communication campaign, ‘Taking India To The World’, which as you may remember positioned us as a global leader with a world-wide presence

Not only did we achieve what we set out to, we at times exceeded it. Today the Aditya Birla Group’s image is at an all time high. I’m proud to say that we are placed among India’s most respected companies, we attract some of the best talent in the industry, our revenues and earnings across the world has risen exponentially and what is truly notable is that the total awareness of our Group went up by nearly 100% in key metros. Today the equity of our Group has risen manifold both nationally and internationally. Design helped us weave our Group into an integrated whole and it no doubt played an important role in us recognized as a truly global Indian multinational.

Let me take another example from our Group which probably you’re familiar with. This illustrates how design helps create powerful and cutting edge communication. The brand is Idea and the role of design-thinking was to bring up a human-centric approach to cellular technology. In the clutter of mobile communication that largely dealt with technology’s snazzy but rather useless features, we leveraged design approach of seeing the category of mobiles from a socio-cultural eye – interpreting mobiles as an Idea for social empowerment and for change.

We as a Group, entered the retail sector last year. Currently we have 660 super marts and 2 hyper marts under the brand name more. Today more is already one of the largest players in the retail market. Private labels or our own ‘in-house brands’ as they’re called are an important product offering. They have two key objectives. One is to provide great value for money to our customers. And Two, and importantly, to create brand differentiation and loyalty to our stores. Our private labels are not known brands and we do not spend money advertising and promoting them. However the sale of private labels earn greater profit for more than what branded products do. So while private labels are a challenge, they are also very important. Packaging design plays a vital role in the retail space. In supermarkets, shelves are cluttered with various similar products from different companies. So, the only thing that separates you from the competition is your design of package. And as I’ve mentioned, since we don’t advertise private labels, the brand name and packaging design has to work really hard to induce ‘pick me up’. Hence, the packaging design challenge for Aditya Birla retail was to create the correct perception in relation to the price, quality and packaging of our private labels. To ensure shelf space, attract customers to pick up our products and easily communicate the essence of the brand, and all this in one glance.

Lets take a look at some of the more products and their design. Feasters is a food brand from our private label. We carefully chose this name because it had dual connotation – of a celebration and of a tasty meal. It clearly talked to people who wanted to feast. We wanted the Feaster packaging to shout out from the shelf. So our packaging used vibrant colors and mouth watering food shots to communicate great taste. It appealed to our young target audience and people were immediately attracted to it.

In the case of ‘Maha Saver’, it had to stand out as a no-frills brand so the name instantly spelled out the savings. The packaging design used a clean minimal background, simple font and a red circle as a mnemonic for savings across categories. Even the packaging material we use was basic and simple in order to keep the costs down and to convey how economically priced the ‘Maha Saver’ brand is.

As we know, the FMCG soap and detergent category is very performance oriented. To show how our brand more than delivers on its promise, we chose the name ‘110%’. The size and bold color of the logo were very prominent on the packaging and reinforced our brand promise. Our brand’s key functional benefits were emphasized on the pack.

So what did design achieve for our brand? I’m happy to say that Feasters noodles has actually achieved 55% of Maggie noodles sales from more in less than a year. Also for every 100 bottles of Kissan ketchup sold, we sell 88 bottles of Feasters ketchup. ‘Kitchen Promise’ another more private label brand and ‘more pickels’ together out sells Mother’s Recipe by more than two and a half times and ‘Maha Saver’ has been dominating the competition across categories. I’m very proud to say that this year Aditya Birla Retail was conferred the Golden Spoon Award for the most admired private label food and grocery brand.

Design has also helped up in seeing, what would be relatively mundane for the general public but, are of huge interests to businessmen like us – process efficiencies and savings. Let me take you through an example from Novelis, our company that makes aluminum roll products on how design has proved efficiencies for Jaguar.

Traditionally the bodies of Jaguar cars have been made of steel. In 2002, Novelis partnered with Jaguar to become its technology partner. What Novelis did was to totally revolutionize the Jaguar. Novelis used aluminum to design the Jaguar XK making it ultra-modern and strong. I think one of our biggest design innovations was the adhesive bonding of the aluminum panels in combination with the rivets for the Jaguar. Novelis has also worked with Jaguar on every stage of its development; starting from the initial design going right through to the product development stage and finally we took it to completion till the end manufacturing stage. As a result of this design innovation, Novelis managed to reduce the weight of the Jaguar by as much as 40-50%. The car now had high torsional stiffness that gave it improved handling. It had increased joint fatigue resistance that gave it structural integrity. And even more important, it had excellent crash energy management and field resistance that made it a safer and more durable car. In addition, this simple change in design led to a chain reaction of benefits to the car maker, like reduced maps, better fuel economy, improved performance, less emissions, 100% recycling and improved safety. So, thanks for some innovative designs at Novelis, the Jaguar XJ and XK today are lighter and roomier and yet larger. They are easier to handle, accelerate faster, deliver well on fuel economy, emit less green house gases, offer greater safety and they are more affordable than competitive car brands.

As we all know, today protecting and preserving our environment has become critically important. This is something that I’m personally very concerned about and as a Group, our companies make a concerted effort to see where we can do our bit to minimize emissions, recycle and conserve. Design, we believe can play a key role in helping the environment and a classic example of this is our Grasim cement factory.

Lastly, there is the inspirational role that design and designers can play. This is the story of the Gandhi museum. As some of you may know, our family shared a long association with Mahatma Gandhi. He spent his last days in the Birla House, which was our family home in Delhi. In his honor, we have converted the Birla House into the eternal Gandhi multimedia museum. Instead of filling the museum with exhibits that visitors passively view, we designed the museum using hi-tech digital 3D exhibit to capture the attention of and to inspire the youth. Our museum presents the story of Gandhi-ji in an arresting interactive digital way. Its the first of its kind multimedia museum. Whats really interesting is that everyone from scholars, artists, craftsmen, to electronic designers, digital artists and animators have worked on this museum to keep Mahatma Gandhi’s vision alive. Visitors can actually walk around and interact with the exhibit. These are some of the exhibits you will find at the museum -
The shadow charka is a exhibit where Gandhiji’s charka casts a shadow. When visitors touch the shadow it changes into a quote of Gandhi.
The children’s vision exhibit is unique in that visitors can peep into a kaleidoscope to explore stories of Gandhi. These stories have been specially composed by children.
In the freedom songs exhibit, each time a visitor strikes a sing on the harp, songs like the National Anthem and “Sare Jahan Se Achcha” start to play.

Well, the future truly belongs to the designers simply because good designers and of course, good entrepreneurs listen to their eye. They see future possibilities and thats why the future belongs to them. The world you visualize today is the world we all will live in tomorrow. The cars we drive, the houses we live in, the clothes we wear, the gadgets that makes our lives easy – everything starts with the designer. You. So continue to dream and dream well because the future really is in your hands.

Finally, to conclude, I would like to offer you my take on the qualities you need for success once you step out of this fine institution and into the real world. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need weird shoes or long ponytails to be a design thinker. In my view there are these five straits that designers should have to be designers of the future.

1. See things that others dont.
2. Put people first.
3. Empathize and observe the world closely.
4. Play and experiment. Try something new, try something different.
5. Collaborate. Thats the myth of the lone creative genius. He doesn’t have a place in this inter-disciplinary ecosystem of the new world. Team work is the key to success.

Collaborating, assimilating, enterprising, experimenting and being hopeful – interestingly all these traits are integral to the melting pot that is India. Its time for you to take it to the world and to make us proud.

I wish you all the very best.

Thank you.