Opinion A cowboy triggers big business
He swaggered in on Air Force One,keeping a watchful eye on the herds in the wide open ranges.
-
Share -
-
-
He swaggered in on Air Force One,keeping a watchful eye on the herds in the wide open ranges. From taxpayers back home looking askance at his millions-of-dollars trip,to expectations from his Indian hosts,and neighbouring Pakistan and China flinching over his terse references to them,the cowboy was riding centrestage. Skillfully swinging his lasso over Indian businessmen,he reined in $10-15 billion worth of contracts for American firms. President Barack Obama proved that,like the modern-day cowboy in a rodeo,he could still sit atop his bucking bull electorate where his party just lost mid-term elections,to emerge victorious. His lasso boasted a kill of 54,000 jobs for his countrymen,from India. All this,without repeating his election words of preferring Buffalo to Bangalore for outsourcing,or exposing a possible future trend that Ohio Governor Ted Strickland started when he passed an executive order in September 2010 to ban outsourcing.
Deal making is part-and-parcel of American capitalist society. They can grab an opportunity and align it to a national level strategic decision. In Michigan six months ago,I heard their Governor say the US should export,not import. GEs super-boss recently announced GEs five-year ambition to sell American products of $10 billion in India. And President Obama demonstrated how to execute this strategy. This coherent drive of a nation stems from a powerful political opposition that compels even the President of the worlds superpower to travel to different countries with a business collection box.
What are Indias learnings on how to drive opportunity and strengthen future directions from this cultural discipline?
1. Without a strong political opposition that reflects mass sentiments,our democratic government gets no back-pressure to drive for peoples benefit. Coffee-house,table-talk protest of Leftist parties is not challenge enough. Having run the liberalised economy for two decades,its time India became shrewd and intelligent to extract the best for the common man. Does a Left protest against the US Presidents visit have any meaning when everyone knows India exports $40 billion IT services to the US every year? Only a vigilant opposition bench can be a threat to the ruling party to defend the countrys economy and people.
2. The US is beginning to understand that vacating the manufacturing space was another cause of their downturn. In trying to repair this mistake,they are peddling products now. India tom-toms its $60 billion IT exports,but that comprises basic,non-innovative work. Of course two million IT-related jobs were created,but what about engineering talent drained for mere coding? Indias manufacturing quality and high skill precision are far behind those of China,Korea and Japan,but without manufacturing,our economy cannot be robust in future.
3. Indias cost-advantage IT service with people exports to Western societies is a fragile business. Can the jobless in economic drought tolerate what they perceive as jobs escaping to foreigners? IT professionals claim American corporations cannot run without outsourcing to India. That may be true,but the requirements of American companies and American society are not the same. If India was the inventor of products like SAP,Oracle,Microsoft,then adding services behind them could have been interesting. Unfortunately,Indian IT service does not reflect any innovative streak. We need to add value beyond meeting physical numbers to avoid the been Bangalored slogan which in the US means jobs gone to India. Whats already happening is Western IT service companies are employing Indian engineers en masse in India. To stop being badgered as job snatchers,Indian companies can take the bold step of localisation. Companies like Accenture and IBM employ more Indian engineers in India than most Indian IT companies do. They serve Western clients but are they facing this political bogeyman that other Indian companies are? Perhaps not,because their local interface and value addition to their customers business are so high that they can easily hide everything else. Opening local companies may not solve the negativity towards outsourcing,but at least it can temper the conflict situation.
4. Even as the US President is marketing India,Indian companies should not expect that American technology know-how will easily transfer to India even if we are paying for it. Don’t mix India up with Israel. Americans are ready to fork out largesse to Israel because of their strategic interest in controlling Middle East Arab states that are floating in petroleum reserves. This kind of open-pocket support can never come Indias way.
Traditionally Indias been a trading society,so breakthrough invention has not happened here as in US garages. Our societal gene for invention is not developed,nor is there any precedent of a new departure from Indian invention.
Industries in India follow the American capital market system of quarter-to-quarter results to satisfy shareholders. Wheres the inclination for investment in invention? Without getting into hardcore manufacturing,export of manufactured products with high quality image,the Indian economy will not be robust tomorrow.
Developed countries are targeting Indias huge consumer base that manages a good lifestyle with proportionately lower income than Western counterparts. Thats enough for Presidents and CEOs to come for encashing business here to raise their countrys economy. What about our ministers and CEOs? Shouldnt they become business cowboys for India too?
Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com
-
Share
-
-
-
Share
