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'Industry Benchmark', 'Best in the market', 'Best Industry practice', 'X Company's Success Story', 'Market Strategy of Y Company'...

Off late these are some popular phrases we keep on coming across in business prints and conversations. It has become a popular trend to emulate the best and successful practices of successful companies in the industry, CEOs would go to the extent of spending lakhs of money asking consultants to replicate such practices in their set-up, without taking care if the practice goes well with the culture of their organization or not, or whether or not they have the bandwidth to emulate such a practice.
If only they would have spent some time looking inwards!!!

Organizations today have become so huge that it has really become difficult to maintain much consistency of processes across the organization. Imagine an organization with 8 SBUs (Strategic Business Units) across the world - unless, for example, the processes like recruitment, training, PMS, etc., are centralized; an HR employee sitting in India would have no clue how these processes are carried out in the US office of the same company. One may site the advantage of fast communication systems, global access databases and wide reach - but nothing replaces the 'scarce human touch'. Having documented processes is one thing, implementing them is quite another. The 'Study Missions' practice may really come handy in such cases. As the name suggests, Study Mission is an endeavour to study and to learn with an open mind. The idea is to imbibe and adapt and not to question and criticize.

The history of 'Study Missions' in India can be traced back to 7 AD when Hueng Tsang visited India to study Indian culture. Though not termed as "Study Mission" at that time, it was one in spirit. Lets try to understand the concept of Study Missions.

Study Missions are: -