India, April 16 -- There was a time, until the 1980s, when conglomerates with unrelated interests thrived. This was the era of MNCs. Although they never vanished, the 1990s and 2000s were driven by an insatiable urge to find core competence. Thanks to reforms across the globe, including those in the US and Europe, empires shed interests to refocus themselves. Specific verticals and horizontals were in fashion. But as new areas opened, and sunrise sectors came into vogue, a silent revolution ensued to bring back the era of conglomerates, albeit in new forms, structures, and systems. In a recent article, the two authors at McKinsey looked at some Asian examples, and dubbed it Conglomerates 3.0 (C-3.0).

Unlike the unrelated-business MNCs an...