What started off as a help to athletes – Achrekar to Tendulkar and to conquerors of past, think Aristotle to alexander, has now come off age to help the corporate warriors lead their companies to global battles. Executive coaching is one of the most powerful tool available to senior executives to work with an external un-invested expert who will help them achieve a specific goal in a time bound way. It has been leveraged by most of fortune 500 companies to help their executives scale to the next level. Executive coaching is making a big entry in corporate India. It is no longer about a retired executive giving advice to his younger counterparts. Here are a few key trends that are shaping up its future.

1. 1. Go broader: The first key trend that the industry will see is that more organizations will demand coaching. The industry is growing in India at a rate of approx. 50% and will continue to do so for the next 4 to 5 years.
   2. Go deeper: Capitalism’s inherent power lies in moving capital to where it grows. Coaching has a ROI of 7 to 10 times going up to 49 times. This makes the investment not only pay back for itself but also add directly back to the top and bottom line constructively. As CEO’s see this, they would want to take its power deeper in to their organizations.
   3. Demand more: As the companies mature in the executive coaching programs, coaching engagements would get its due attention. No longer will coaching remain an engagement between the CEO and a coach, outside of the purview of all audit. Instead invested leaders will demand more from the coach.
   4. Rise of professional coaches: Today coaches also do a lot of other things for including consulting, workshops. Some are even in full time jobs. This will change. The industry will see a rise of professional coaches who will work exclusively to help CEO’s deliver desired results.
   5. Trust in the system: Today the Indian coaching eco system has significant gaps in it due to poor distribution, coach qualification and pricing. This is reflected in higher cost of coaching in India (25%+) compared to the west despite lower cost of living. This will change from currently a loose affiliate of people to clear definition of the industry and its parameters of success.

The changes are good for the consumers as It will drive the costs down and the value up. The question for industry is which players will transform and stay and which will wither away. Vivek Slaria is an Executive Coach and founder, Originbluy, a firm coaching CXOs in India.

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