G S RAMESH
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT-HR, HYUNDAI MOTOR INDIA LTD

India has always done it and can do it again. Much before the words Globalization and Liberalization took birth we had provided the right leadership albeit without much ado and publicity. It was Swami Vivekananda in the nineteenth century who first illuminated the western world with leadership through spirituality. Later on, the brightest face of Indian polity in the form of our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru enhanced the ‘Indian’ brand of the leadership and spoke of ‘Panch Sheel’ when aggression occupied the minds of neighboring leadership to occupy our territory. The sagacity that was manifest in the Indian leadership then has taken us through four decades and the rewards are more visible now when neighbors who talked aggression started speaking our language, the language of peaceful coexistence and growth.
The transformation has come also because the time has come now for India to provide not only spiritual and political leadership but also entrepreneurial and managerial leadership with business acumen. How? The beginning is made in Information Technology. Information Technology as the springboard of growth has opened up avenues for the ‘Indian’ brain. Beginning with ‘IT’ the ‘Indian’ spread its wings in other industries as well especially in Telecom, Auto/Auto components, Media, Education and Entertainment.
The study report of World Bank too projects greater role and responsibility for the ‘Indian’ leadership with expectation of accelerated growth. The report of World Bank has tangible statistics to support their study that projects a bright picture of hitherto not so rich countries.
• Globalization could spur faster growth in average incomes in the next 25 years than during 1980-2005, with developing countries playing a central role. However, unless managed carefully, it could be accompanied by growing income inequality and potentially severe environmental pressures, predicts the World Bank.
• On how globalization will shape the global economy over the next 25 years, the report’s ‘central scenario’ predicts that the global economy could expand from $35 trillion in 2005 to $72 trillion in 2030. Developing countries that only two decades ago provided 14 percent of manufactured imports of rich countries, today supply 40 percent, and by 2030 are likely to supply over 65 percent.
• Global trade in goods and services could rise more than threefold to $27 trillion in 2030 and trade as a share of the global economy will rise from one-quarter today to more than one-third. Roughly half of the increase is likely to come from developing countries.
• By 2030, 1.2 billion people in developing countries-15 percent of the world population-will belong to the “global middle class,” up from 400 million today
The report and the accompanying statistics are quite encouraging and revealing as any discussion in the past on matters concerning economic growth of developed and developing countries invariably bisected the topic in to European and Asian. The term European inevitably being understood as inclusive of Americans and Aussies while the term Asian always excluded Africans. India was dealt as a country that cannot be ignored and that too more for reasons of population than growth. The projections of the World Bank study now are revealing a different story. It predicts a very rapid and accelerated growth of developing countries. India, China and Japan being the three Asian countries that are actively in the growth path, the revealingly advantageous statistics of the World Bank manifests more on what India has achieved. To the advantage of India, the positive aspects of the report are already visible with the middle class population growing fast in number as well as standard of life. The Indian leadership of yore was careful and visionary enough to treat the negative aspects of the projections to handle the threat of income inequality. The poverty alleviation programs that were initiated and perennially continued has helped raise the benchmark of poverty line though it needs more concerted effort in future as well.
The developments that India has seen over the decade in the structural, attitudinal, professional and above all economical aspects have made the world sit up and take notice. A predominantly importing country today exports. Exports to the same countries that were looked upon as developed, by the underdog of an underdeveloped economy. The changes can be proudly termed “Success” as the changes have come forth in a democracy embracing in the process also the opposing minds and view points.
It also brings to the fore the ‘Indian’ polity that is democratic. You do not need a leader in dictatorship. You need it only in a democracy. It is here that India scores over other two active competitors viz China and Japan. While Japan needs to feed just 10% of the Indian population, the Chinese do not have the compulsions of democracy and consequent complexities of leadership.
The fact that developing countries would see spurred up export growth is very true in the Indian context and more particularly in the automobile industry. Children who more than a decade ago learnt of European countries as exporters of cars, engineering and other finished goods are now busy attending to export of cars to the same European countries by being a vital cog of the manufacturing hub in India. The auto and auto ancillary industries are kept busy competing, improving and exporting goods not only among themselves but also with other competing industries like IT, ITES, media and entertainment. The following statistics literally speaks volumes.
• The automobile industry in India offers significant employment opportunities. The automobile industry including component industry employs 0.45 million people directly and around 10 million people indirectly.
• Many international auto majors entered the country post liberalisation in 1991.
• India’s largest car-maker Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) was privatized with Suzuki Motor Corporation moving into the driving seat after acquiring a majority stake and management control in the Maruti Suzuki joint venture in early 2002.
The number of vehicles manufactured in India has raised from 3 million units annually in 1999 to 5 million units in 2002. This has also led to an increase in domestic demand for automotive components.
Korean, Japanese and British component manufacturers are already operating JVs in India. American companies, which have or are planning to set up plants in India, include Delphi (an automotive components division of General Motors, USA), Delco Electronics, Textron and Magna International of Canada.
• Auto majors such as DaimlerChrysler, Volvo, Renault, Toyota and Honda are planning to outsource their requirements from India.
Apart from statistics it is the ‘Advantage India’ factor that has spurred action. The Indian worker is very much qualitative, committed, knowledge worker and above all competitive when it comes to wages. Hence it is not surprising that almost one out of four cars manufactured in India are exported and the importers include Europeans.
The industry leaders have displayed business acumen to take prompt and correct decisions timely. In no small measure they are aided by the political leadership in opening out the economy through the right doors to the right entities. Proof enough of the Indian beaconing others to follow is the following headings in auto journals and websites.
• Companies Hiring for India & Abroad Upload Your Resume Free. Apply Now!
• Say No To Boring Forms. Get A job At The Touch Of A Button. Apply Now
• US auto industry votes for India.
The statistics above and the contents in the advertisements in the websites and journals may be pleasing. But what is much more pleasing and also giving a sense of fulfillment are the achievements of the industries that resulted in the favorable statistics, favorable outlook and above all a very favorable prediction about the future, viewing the ‘Indian’ as the potential leader who would trace a path that others want to follow
Let us go back by a decade and see how this sense of elation for the ‘Indian’ was made possible. Hyundai a very unlikely name to rhyme in Tamil, with its Tech know how landed in the state of Tamil Nadu with the ambition to manufacture car, a luxury then to an average Indian. But just in few years the cars with names like ‘Santro’ and ‘Accent’ started wheeling around and another christened ‘Sonata’ and introduced as a sixteen feet visiting card became an object of prestige to the prestigious.
The success story of Hyundai is just a sample of what the ‘Indian’ can do. It was in fact a deluge of industries as if floodgates were opened for prosperity. Ford, Toyota, Fiat, BMW to name a few in automobiles, Saint Gobain, Nokia, Motorola etc in other industries just spread shop and prospered. IT and ITES industries is ocean in themselves with the metros competing to outwit one another in being branded as the silicon valley of brand India.
The ‘Indian’ worker was always a knowledge worker. But with globalization and IT as the springboard of growth has also learnt to rule. Rule not in the British sense of occupancy but ruling through leadership. How the leadership in India has succeeded in the present context can also be compared by looking at the success rate of the companies that have a manufacturing hub in India and elsewhere and how the sailing is smooth here and is unsmooth and even rough in others including the parent country of the multi national that chose India to prosper.
It was cheap labor initially as it was called cheaply. Today it is labor with competitive wages, as knowledge worker, learning worker and above all a proud committed worker who has competed and won in international bids. Apart from labor, the supervisory, managerial and leadership cadres of the industries too are competitive and professional and the political leadership not to be left behind chose to be progressive, supportive, visionary and encouraging. Sleepy villages unheard of like Irungattukkotai and Sriperumpudur in the vicinity of Chennai are in the world map as manufacturing hub. Along with Maraimalainagar and Mahindra City the triangle is compared to the city of Motor cars—Detroit.
It is enough now, to stop talking of achievements in India. The global Indian by whatever nomenclature NRI, PIO has also started achieving and achieving at the highest level both financially, technologically and managerially. It is INFOSYS, TCS and Satyam in the IT world with the first mentioned choosing to enter the NASDAQ for trading its shares. No mean achievement to a nation that was a decade ago bracketed as under developed. Equally great is the achievement of an Indian to head the cricket world body ICC and proving what a phenomenal commercial success we can be. Apart from Meganand Desai and Swaraj Paul in English politics, even Pepsi and Arcelor steel have seen what the power of ‘Indian’ leadership can achieve in business. ‘Tata’ a name that was ever charming for anything related to excellence has proved very recently what brand India can achieve.
Even in the days ahead the scenario is very bright. Thousands of youngsters from India already are ruling the IT world across the globe. Their propulsion by virtue of their talent, commitment and quality is already well accelerated. Added to this are the products from our IITs and IIMs whose campus interview hit not only headlines but also new heights in pay packet. It is all reflection of the potential and the lead-role that await them in the global market.
The Indian political leadership has not lagged behind. The democracy has matured and realizing that change is continuous also has adapted to the political compulsions of coalition without confrontation. It is also progressive leadership with investments being invited for growth which in turn results as products worthy of export in the competitive global market.
While there is still stiff competition from the European countries and the two Asian giants of Japan and China, what is already achieved is commendable as in term of number we served one billion and more and in terms of quality in a democracy. This is a unique achievement not necessarily well recognized and perceived as worthy of appreciation. Yet the magnitude of achievement when properly realized and focused for benchmark would spur more enthusiasm and set in the right sense of fulfillment which would be the spring board for more widened effort and action.
Thus if past achievements and facts are viewed in the right perspective, it needs no further doubt and the sense of self-belief would resonate that “Yes, Global Leadership—India can do it”.
“INDIA HAS DONE IT”?