Prof. C.K. Prahalad, Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy, at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan has passed on. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, as we wish his soul a peaceful onward journey.He was a globally renowned and recognized scholar, teacher, consultant, and thinker. I knew C.K. Prahalad, before he became C.K. Prahalad, the Business Guru. We had the good fortune of having him as our Business Policy professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in 1975. Even in the short span of a single trimester, it was clear that Prof. Prahalad was destined for greatness. The crispness of this thinking and his lucid explanations continue to inspire and live in my mind after all these years.
The global business community has hailed and celebrated several of Prof. Prahalad's ideas. For me, two stand apart from the rest. His work with Gary Hamel on Competing for the Future and his writings on The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. I will be reading them again, to inspire myself, and to pay homage to C.K. Prahalad's memory.
What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass.
W.B. Yeats' personal thank you note to the great teachers through the ages.
Leave a comment