No so long ago, it was a murmur, then a debate, and then finally lot of noise, which was mistaken as being just an echo of handful of people. The India growth story has come of age and how!
From being part of the BRIC euphoria, which was questioned right from the point of its emergence, to the First Man of the world (President Obama) himself saying those golden words that ‘India is not simply emerging; India has already emerged’. A strong and prosperous India, US officials argue, is in the best interest of the United States and of course India. We agree!
So far so good! But that’s the backgrounder to what beholds the Indian businesses. Because when the Prime Minister of our country goes out with a pitch to the world, to earn the projects as a part of nation building and economic independence, it is business community, which will be entrusted the task of giving shape and structure to these projects.
The Big Question before the business community is: Are we Ready? Do we have the might and the means to deliver these projects? Are we ready to bring in the change required to rejuvenate our business eco-system? So what will it take to serve the world? The range of productivity across Indian producers is very wide, and the highest level attained in India is not very far below the world standards. This implies that benchmarking against best Indian practice may be a good strategy for many firms in the industry. Also the productivity gap between the leading Indian producer and world class levels is not as wide as the gap in wage rates. But an important contributory factor to shortcomings both in productivity and quality lies in the low output volumes of Indian firms, hence , the more important priority is to improve performance in quality, rather than productivity.
Likewise, customers are looking for 3-4 main things. First, they want to reduce their dependence on labor because of shortage in many areas. Second, they want to put more intelligence in the machine so that the human error is reduced. Third, they want complete turnkey solution from a single source.
The reality called boundary-less market is a bonus with a onus…yes the flat world markets opens up plethora of business opportunities, yes it creates a level playing field for companies across the globe to compete and excel, and yes it sets benchmarks, but it is also true that the onus is on everybody who is in the business of manufacturing to match and above all scale up to the benchmarks already established by leading companies.
In a nutshell, it is all about imbibing the best practices and inculcating it in your products and processes. But if you want to compete, you need to know with whom you need to compare yourself with. While the new age market dynamics prompts us to be better than the best, the yardstick for evaluating our progress in this every changing market needs to be ever evolving one too.
SMEs, the opportunities are staring at you…are you ready to stare back!!
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