Alok talked of out of step entrepreneurs. It is easy sitting in India to be instep. Towards that some technology trends mentioned by Gartner
1. Commoditization & consumerisation – makes tech more affordable
2. Virtualization & Tera Architechtures – Granular components that find each other and self assemble into a computing resource
3. Software Delivery Models & Development styles – Do not own but rent, Buy solutions and capabilities not applications & features
4. Communities & collaborations – Web 2.0, SOA( Service Oriented Architechtures)
I am not a technologist but even if some of this is possible then things are changing so that means opportunity for Indian entrepreneurs in India and globally who are instep and can capitalize on global trends.
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Alok, not sure what you mean. I might have been unclear in what I said.
Here is what I meant: I think it is very hard for Indian executives to be ‘Instep’ to a degree that they can be singularly responsible for driving as well as executing a business plan in the ‘US’. The same holds true for US Executives who decided to do business in India – Reliance horror stories are no secret, as an example.
What I am saying is that a key to being ‘instep’ is not a singularly possible achievement – there must be local presence with enough authority to execute.
Arjun, are you suggesting that your bosses have “power” over you — give me a break dude 🙂
Sanjay,
no disagreement on the point that it is impossible to be everywhere everytime. For a multisite client model, my personal opinion is that you must have concentrated local presence who are empowered to make business related decisions local to the place. In my experience, local empowerment, while aligning it to a corporate wide vision is the right way to go.
In other words, a business head _must_ delegate enough authority to field business managers instead of wanting to be a central node for all power.
Arjun,
I agree that face time/market interaction are very important which is why for global efforts you see startups having some activities in the US/UK/Singapore etc. and some in India. However, even for pure India plays it is worth considering the following …
In an MNC when you are managing a project in fifteen countries it is not possible to have an enormous amount of face time. Yet projects get done by people who have developed skills to interact productively. The onsite/offshore model is another example. Some do it well. Others fail.
It is also possible now to learn a lot from your home/office such that if you get an opportunity to visit the market/get face time the interactions are very productive.
Benchmarking and learning from world class efforts is important and a lot can be done by using the web to stay instep. You can then supplement that learning by interacting with individuals in your geography who have had first hand experience and have returned back.
I personally have an old fashioned opinion on this. No amount of blogging, reading, virtual community interaction, emailing and video calling substitutues for ‘face time’ with the market, where you sit with friends, colleagues, partners and discuss the market, feel the pulse and judge the body language of the person opining.
Having worked in India for US customers and now working in the US for us customers, I feel this is the biggest problem – ‘flattening of the world’ has not yet (for me) reached such proportions that it substitutes being here in person.
Somehow, visits, unless very frequent don’t cut it for me too. Technology and trends move too fast to take a snapshot of.