Indian companies Go Global as job makers

Indian companies Go Global as job makers

India Inc. has envisioned its first-ever Go Global Expo & Conference 2017 as a hub for Indian companies on a decisive global expansion march as well as new start-ups ready for the leap. Here 'India Global Business' delves into the high-profile launch of the event in New Delhi. There was a time barely two centuries ago, when India accounted for 21 per cent of global trade and Great Britain barely 1 per cent. At the height of the British Empire, this relative ratio had been turned on its head, with the United Kingdom as the most dominant trading nation in the world with more than a one-fifth share of world trade and India reduced to a peripheral player with only a 1 per cent share. But the time is ripe for the country to reclaim its lost global trading heritage. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship Make in India programme has identified the 25 sectors that India enjoys a relative competitive advantage in. “These were actually based on investors' impulses. We identified those sectors where we had inherent strengths to turn India into a manufacturing hub for those sectors within a three-to-five-to-seven-year horizon. We have frugal engineering as one of our strengths and frugal not only means cheaper but cheaper and better,” said Deepak Bagla, CEO of Invest India, India's investment promotion and facilitation agency, speaking at the December 2016 launch of the first-ever Go Global Expo & Conference, being organised by India Inc. later this year. The day-long launch seminar brought together leading Indian industrialists, bureaucrats, analysts and thought leaders to discuss and brainstorm on globalisation in the Indian context. [caption id="attachment_10805" align="alignleft" width="319"]

Panelist (L to R) Siddharth Zarabi, Madhav Shriram, Manjit Rajain, Ritesh Bawri in Pannel Discussion[/caption] Putting the seminar and the topic in perspective, Manoj Ladwa, India Inc. founder and CEO, said: “It is an oft-quoted phrase that India is a bright spot in a gloomy and turbulent global economy. We have seen in the last 25 years, the Indian economy gradually going up the value chain of countries around the world to take a premier position as THE place for foreign direct investment (FDI). “In the UK, where I live and work, India has now emerged as the third-largest foreign direct investor and the largest employer in the manufacturing sector.”

Emphasising that for India to go global is natural, Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman & Managing Director of Hero MindMine Institute Ltd and one of the leading international businessmen from India, said: “I don't think the question we need to address is whether India can turn global. The question is only how quickly will it get accepted among the leading nations in the world. “Global trade and business is absolutely not new for India. If you go back in history, in many ways, India actually taught the world how to trade, whether it was in spices or fibres and yarn like cotton. There is a long list of what India was doing for world trade in the past.” But what do Indian companies want while reclaiming the nation's global trading heritage [caption id="attachment_10807" align="alignleft" width="297"]
Audience members at the launch of Go Global Expo & Conference, to be held later this year.[/caption] “The reason a company like ours would go global is... what we want over there is essentially access to better processes, better systems and more efficiencies. Double it up with the huge growth potential of an emerging market where we function, and it becomes a winning combination,” said Major Manjit Rajain, Group Chairman of Tenon Group of Companies. “I would argue that one of the biggest factors that has driven the Pax Indica across the world is the need to have a brand and I think it's more of an emotional need to have a brand that rings and holds true across the world because when it comes to western businesses, we know that branding is something that is taken seriously,” said Siddharth Zarabi, Executive Editor, BTVI, formerly Bloomberg TV, who moderated the session on 'What Indian companies want when they go global'. Joining the discussion, Madhav Shriram, Deputy Managing Director of DCM Shriram Industries, which has a presence in three different industries - sugar, tyre cord and pharma, pointed out: “I don't think anybody can give you a one size fits all solution but we can definitely talk about these three industries. “India is ready to supply sugar technology to the world. In tyre cord, we now have a global market share of almost 10 per cent and we have become part of their indispensable supply chain; so we are working with the various tyre companies in Europe on how to upgrade their products. That's a very unique fit and last but not least is the pharma and chemicals vertical, where we are doing good research and development.” Major Rajain agreed with Shriram that one size does not fit all “very simply because you may be in manufacturing, you may be in different industries. We are in the service industry, so ours is a very different model. We run a security company, a facilities management company, mechanical electrical engineering companies, basically companies in the services sector. Therefore, it begs the question: Why should a services company, which has enough opportunities in India, try to go overseas at all ” Ensuring that his very relevant question didn't remain a rhetorical one, he answered it himself, exposing one of the definitional problems Indians have with globalisation. “The reason we decided to go into what we would call the mature markets was a very simple one. We had a presence in many countries in Asia and some in Africa. But we realised that despite our presence in multiple geographies, we were still not really considered global. It took us sometime to understand that the only way you are really global is when you are present in a mature market,” Rajan added. [caption id="attachment_10802" align="alignleft" width="312"]
Invest India CEO Deepak Bagla addresses the event[/caption] After a hiatus of almost three centuries, an opportunity to go global has presented itself again. So, are we set for a major global expansion by Indian companies Implying that it is an imperative that cannot be avoided, Munjal said: “[Former UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan used to say that talking about deglobalisation is like challenging gravity... the value chain right now is actually staggered across the word. You cannot close that up in one nation; it's not possible. “You can make an attempt but you won't succeed... [Trying to reverse the trend of globalisation] will create some good political mileage and will also create some local jobs for sure but I don't think you can completely close yourself to global trade; no country can any longer become an island and close itself to the rest of the world.” Elaborating on what Munjal said, Arvind Gupta, Head of the BJP's IT Cell & tech entrepreneur, pointed out that though most iPhones are manufactured in China, the main value, the ownership of the intellectual property and management control lie elsewhere. “Things will happen globally but where the IP lies is where the management control is, and that's where the value gets created,” he said. Agreeing with Munjal's contention that globalisation is an irreversible tide, Ashok Malik, political commentator and Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, said: “From the nineteenth century onward, each successive wave of industrial progress has left the world more globalised.” He accepted that there have been phases in between that some have called deglobalisation but none of these phases has resulted in the tide turning back. [caption id="attachment_10803" align="alignright" width="381"]
Panelist (L to R) Ashok Malik, Sunil Kant Munjal, Deepak Bagla, Arvind Gupta at the Go Global Expo & Conference[/caption] However, Ritesh Bawri, Founder, Quantta Analytics plc, had a slightly different take on globalisation. “When we talk about going global, I think what we are really looking at learning from the world is an understanding of what the future holds, which is, in many ways, a jobless future and I think we need to understand when we are looking at investments, we are actually looking at job creation. The threat is automation.” Shriram also pointed out that unlike Chinese companies, which received the full backing of their state while spreading wings abroad, Indian companies have mostly got little or no official support till the Narendra Modi government came to power. [caption id="attachment_10804" align="alignleft" width="298"]
Madhav Shriram at the Go Global Expo & Conference launch[/caption] “We hope that the Government of India can at least give us some kind of comfort when we are investing abroad. I think this present government is making changes in the way our embassies function. Now, the government and the relevant embassies say yes we are here for you. The focus is on economics more than just meandering negotiations at the top between diplomats. The change is happening,” he admitted. Countering the popular narrative in the US that Indian IT companies, the most visible beneficiary of the country's march to globalisation, are shrinking opportunities for US citizens, Ladwa said: “In the US, despite all the calls for pulling up the drawbridge, Indian companies in the IT sector alone employ over a 100,000 local workers. It proves the point that Indians are job makers and not job takers.” Urging all stakeholders to come together for the cause of globalisation, he added: “This is an opportunity to create a joint vision whereby countries around the world come together on a common platform of our
.”
*To know more about the Go Global Expo & Conference, click here

Related Stories

No stories found.

Podcast

No stories found.

Defence bulletin

No stories found.

The power of the quad

No stories found.

Videos

No stories found.

Women Leaders

No stories found.
India Global Business
www.indiaglobalbusiness.com