Succession Planning in India: The Path Less Traversed

Abstract

Being one of the important aspects of corporate governance, succession planning is required to ensure the continuity in leadership and effective performance of any company. The topic of succession and transition has been a burning issue for Corporate India, especially after some high level exits like Binny Bansal of Flipkart, Vinod Dasari of Ashok Leyland etc. With no immediate replacement to step into the critical positions, the vacuum created by these sudden exits can have a strong impact on the performance of the company. It is felt very strongly among the regulators that the Boards should become more proactive towards succession planning and thereby, develop an external and internal slate of candidates, who are selected after arigorous evaluation process. This paper seeks to explore the state of succession planning in India.