Pepsi's Shivakumar on ingredients of a successful CEO

The principles of business are very similar irrespective of the category you are in. The principles of profit, of innovation, of people management, of putting the customer first are all the same. However, the characteristics of an industry are different. For example, the characteristics of a beverage industry will be very different from the characteristics of a Telecom industry. So, while the characteristics of a business might change, the principles remain the same. During my tenure and experience in various companies in India, Middle East and African emerging markets, whenever I went into a company, I just looked at three things: One, Is the company gaining market share? If you are getting market share, then you are doing something better than competition and hence your productivity would be much better. The second thing that I look for is employee engagement and productivity. If employee engagement, productivity and the trust in the company is very high, then you get much better return on investment in people. Hence, that is one of the best ways to actually reduce costs. Most people look at reducing costs as a one-way act of cutting. I would like to recommend to HR managers to think of improving productivity instead of cutting costs. The third one is cash flow. You have to ensure that you are making enough money.