Changes for the better

Well this blog is a comment towards what Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of Blackstone Group had said when he went to india for his company's expansion:

A couple of years ago, he said, his company decided to start investing in India. He liked India because it was a democracy, the legal system was well established, and the costs seemed low and the potential seemed high. But when Blackstone tried to find an office in the commercial capital of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the only space it could find was a hotel room. (”And I thought hotel rooms were for sleeping, not officing,” he said.) Employees, wired into the world, wanted wages competitive with what they would earn elsewhere. And even the investment climate seemed somewhat overheated, with high multiples. Land prices alone, he was told, are more than 10 times what they were 18 months ago.“Overheated?” asked Mr. Schwarzman, who describes himself as a big India booster. “You decide.”

Well here goes my reply.Before you start reading this,i have to splill the beans.The statements are not entirely mine ,although the views are.I have had a chance to look into some spectacular comments from people highly intelligent than me .So here it is ...

I am Indian and I am not defending India. I am just amazed by the level of economic activity in India. If you ignore India, it will be at your peril. I left India when I was 24 almost 10 years back and has been in U.S except a brief period when I actually worked for the offshore division in India for one of the biggest Companies in Europe(Clue1 -> The Oldest insurance company in the World) .

I visit ( try to !!!)this country every year and the changes under way are amazing.When you reach there ,touch down at Mumbai or Trivandrum Airport you can see the magnitude of differences not just structurally(which is minimum in Kerala as such)but a lot of other factors.Let us dwell in to this for a minute. India has the cheapest mobile phone rates in the world. In my brief time at India in the last 10 yrs, when the European MNC giant(Clue2 - >Head quartered in Munich) was kick starting their operations in India , I was the 3rd employee to be acquired into their management team. I had a chance to learn a lot during those times, the budgeting,Project Planning,Program management and the ways our COO impressed the locals even though we were a new name in the town, how to interact with our European colleagues, managing and leading a bunch of very bright and anxious go-getter's.

The new budget airlines in India provide the cheapest airfares in the world. This is really amazing because now a days Airline travel is almost same if not cheaper than travelling in Train in India.

India has the largest proportion of youngsters in the world and this trend will continue well into the second half of this century. India’s democracy will reach critical mass in the next 15 years - the bane of any democracy is that the majority of the voting population whether educated or uneducated decide who governs the country; in India to this day, populous leaders get elected only because of the majority being illiterate and not knowing what is best for their own future. This will change in the next 15 years because of the major educational efforts under way. And at that point, India would reach the final inflection point in its rise to a super power.

It is an interesting fact that with each new government, the number of ministers with international exposure and education is increasing - currently 2 Harvard’s and an Oxford. A good example is the current Finance minister,P.Chidambaram who has an MBA from Harvard,in addition to his B.Sc and L.L.B degrees.Finally, for folks like me, salary differentials between the US, UK and India(I have worked only in these countries) have become minimal - no real reason you have to work abroad to earn money. In fact, India gives young managers the best run for their money.

India is on a roll and I love it!

Cheers

-HD