Globally renowned management guru CK Prahalad passed away today after a brief illness at a San Diego hospital, family sources said.
Prahalad, 69, is survived by his wife, a son, and a daughter.
He was a professor of corporate strategy at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and was well known for writing best-sellers on management subjects, including The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profit.
Hailing from the textile city of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Prahalad did his graduation in science from the Loyola College in Madras and his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After getting his doctorate from Harvard Business School, Prahalad, who became a reputed corporate thinker, was associated with the University of Michigan.
He was on the board of several top Indian and global companies and institutions like Hindustan Unilever, The Indus Entrepreneurs, and the Washington-based World Resources Institute.
Among Prahalad's popular management and business books were The Future Of Competition: Co-Creating Value With Customers and 'The Multinational Mission, Balancing Global Integration With Local Responsiveness.
His book on the bottom of the pyramid, however, remains the most talked about and is considered relevant for developing economies like India, where businesses have a long way to go before they touch people at the lower end of the economic and social strata.
Condoling his death, Indian industry paid rich tributes to the decorated management professor.
"We have lost an outstanding management guru, a visionary, a great soul who was highly committed to contributing towards India's growth and development," Confederation of Indian Industry director-general Chandrajit Banerjee said in a statement.
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