MUMBAI: It’s another feather in the cap of Indian academia. Vijay Govindarajan, the Earl C Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at Dartmouth Colleges Tuck School of Business, will soon join General Electric (GE) as professor in Residence and chief innovation consultant to help the company advance its innovation agenda.

Indian academicians are among the most sought after business brains in the West. Already people like Govindarajan, Ram Charan and CK Prahalad are advising several Fortune 500 companies. Incidentally, all three of them have made it to the Thinkers 50, an annual ranking of the Top 50 business and management thought leaders.

Says Govindarajan, "My area of expertise is how to create breakthrough businesses while managing the current business. And this is what I will do at GE as well." This was also a theme that Govindarajan addressed in the bestselling book 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators (co-authored with Chris Trimble).

Jeffrey Immelt has been pushing innovation at GE ever since he took over in 2001. The idea is to grow though organic innovation instead of just acquiring companies. GE has identified six areas to innovate in: environment, infrastructure, demographics, emerging markets, digital technologies and financial liquidity.

Each of these businesses present tremendous opportunities to create breakthrough businesses, says Govindarajan. "For instance, demographic changes are leading to a huge ageing population and huge healthcare needs in the coming 50 years."

"This means GE needs to identify these needs now and see how it can address them through its diagnostics business. Similarly, environmental problems like global warming and water scarcity also present significant opportunities."
This is the first time GE has created the position of chief innovation consultant. Govindarajan will perform three roles during his one year stint at the company (he will return to Tuck in 2009): teaching its top 600 executives and teams, consulting on a few innovation projects and consulting to GE executives who want to develop their ideas.

GE does a good job of integrating what they teach at their development centre in Crotonville with actually growth strategy, says Govindarajan.