Imagining India's global powerhouses
Double book launch celebrates India's growth
India's standing as a global business behemoth was in no dispute on 21 April when a London audience gathered to hear two thought leaders make the case. The event, sponsored by the Aditya Birla India Centre of London Business School, was a joint launch of two books: Imagining India, by Nandan Nilekani and India's Global Powerhouses by Nirmalya Kumar, Professor of Marketing at London Business School. The authors explained how India rose from an overpopulated underachiever to one of the world's fastest-growing market leaders
Professor Kumar, co-director of the India Centre, explained that his book's inception began with a phone call from an unknown manufacturing company in India, and a request that he lead a session for the company's employees. Convinced the company could not afford his fees, Professor Kumar was on the verge of declining when he learned that, in fact, this company had 32% market share worldwide on manufacturing toothpaste tubes, producing packaging for all of Proctor and Gamble's toothpaste products. This discovery led him to wonder if there were other little known Indian companies who are global market leaders. Ultimately Professor Kumar interviewed 35 leading CEOs in researching India's Global Powerhouses. He discovered that Indian managers excel in efficiency and productivity because they are accustomed to working with limited resources. Plus, Indian companies have one major advantage - a massive domestic market. If companies attain market leadership in India they are already world leaders in terms of market share - the only thing between them and global fulfilment is not core competencies, but only making the choice of whether or not to expand overseas.
Nandan Nilekani is co-chairman and co-founder of one such global leader, Infosys Technologies. His book Imagining India examines how ideas have shaped the nation's growth. He claims certain changes in thought have cultivated India's annual economic growth from 3.5% in the 1980s to the current boom of 8%: no longer viewing its huge population as a burden, but as an asset in the form of human capital; valuing entrepreneurs instead of treating them with suspicion; embracing technology and using it to empower people; throwing off ambivalence towards the English language and recognising it as a language of empowerment; no longer fearing globalisation; and finally welcoming the spread of democracy.
Now all that remains is for India to lay claim to its own successes, say Professor Kumar. "We have to make the transition from ‘outsourced and made in India' to ‘imagined and owned in India.'"