Ram Charan

If talent is the leading indicator of whether a business is up or down, a success or a failure (and it is), do you know how to accurately judge raw human talent? Understand a person's unique combination of traits? Develop that talent? Convert what supposedly are "soft" subjective judgments about people into objective criteria that are as specific, verifiable, and concrete as the contents of a financial statement?

The talent masters do. They put people before numbers for the simple reason that it is talent that delivers the numbers. Success comes from those who are able to extract meaning from events and the forces affecting a business, and are able to look at the world and assess the risks to take and the risks to avoid. In this riveting speech, keynote speaker Ram Charan addresses this fascinating subject.

Navigating competitive markets during economic turmoil is a scary and daunting task. In this keynote presentation, Charan helps you navigate your business through difficult competitive and economic scenarios like contracting markets, cash shortages, and prolonged uncertainty. No matter what your leadership role, Charan’s insight will help ensure that your business emerges leaner, stronger, and well in front of the competition.

In this keynote speech, Charan provides practical actions you can execute immediately to:

• Protect cash flow vigilantly, even daily, and use cash more efficiently
• Use ground intelligence to survive the storm and position your business to thrive in the aftermath
• Develop a better understanding of your customers
• Reevaluate your pricing strategy and capital expenditures
• Use cost cutting strategically

For many leaders, creating a strategy is the easy part. Making it happen is the real challenge. Why is flawless execution so hard to achieve? Because, execution takes personal discipline and a systematic approach to synchronizing the moving parts of an organization. Based on his best selling and highly praised book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, this keynote address covers:

• Why execution cannot be delegated
• How companies like Wal-Mart, Dell, and GE use execution to outperform competitors
• The framework of flawless execution
• Tools to develop your own discipline of execution

In a rousing keynote speech, Charan brings realism and specificity to leadership. Why do so many leaders fail? The answer is because they simply don’t know how to run a business. Charan breaks through the myths surrounding leadership and explains the capabilities leaders must possess. He gives aspiring leaders an actionable course to take charge of their own development and help other leaders grow. This keynote presentation, based on Charan’s 2007 book Know-How: The 8 Skills that Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don’t and his 2008 book Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis, covers:

• What leadership training tends to omit
• The 8 capabilities leaders really need
• When and how personality matters
• Examples of leaders who have outstanding know-how in critical areas
• How to build and improve your know-how
• How to build a pipeline of leaders who deliver

Too often selling becomes a war over price. In “Reinventing How You Sell”, keynote speaker Ram Charan shows a way out of price wars with a new approach to selling that starts with helping customers reach their business goals. Charan discusses companies that have made the shift and escaped from commodity-pricing hell. This session, based on Charan’s 2008 book What the Customer Wants You to Know: How Everyone Needs to Think Differently About Sales, covers:

• How to put the fun back into selling
• Learning to see your customers holistically
• Adopting a new role for salespeople—and everybody else
• Shaping offerings so that customers willingly pay more

Companies need innovation for revenue and profit growth. But many people think innovation is unpredictable or out of reach. In this informative keynote presentation, Charan demystifies innovation and explains how powerhouse companies do it. With his proclivity toward real-world practicality, he translates insights from the best companies into concrete steps that make innovation repeatable and measurable. This keynote, based on Charan’s 2008 book The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation, covers:

• Putting the customer at the center of innovation
• The building blocks of innovation
• Innovation as a social process
• Reducing the risk of innovation failure
• How to be an innovation leader