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TALK STRATEGY
Liberalising the retail sector and allowing foreign investment, and strategic planning are top on the priority list of business guru Vijay Govindarajan
Rinku Gupta
"We need to accelerate the process of opening our borders or else we will become history." These are not the words of economists at the Davos Summit but of Vijay Govindarajan, when he was in town to sign copies of his book, Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators - From Idea to Execution.
Addressing an interactive session at Landmark, Vijay voiced his opinion on why India is going to race ahead of China in the next two decades. "Our population is an asset. We have highly skilled, educated people who are a source of wealth creation. English language is another strength. China has an ageing population and with the single child norm there are very few kids to take care of the aged there. This immense social cost will have to be borne by the state. India has political freedom imperative for sustained economic growth. Demographics are in our favour since we have a younger workforce, which is not rooted in the past but full of fresh ideas. However, we have to build on infrastructure, education, management and liberalising labour laws in order to get ahead soon."
Happy to be re-visiting India once again, Vijay is the Earl C Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and founding director of Tuck’s Centre for Global Leadership. For two consecutive years, the Wall Street Journal ranked Tuck as the number one business school in the world and number two for strategy. Vijay’s area of expertise being strategy, with particular reference to strategic innovation, industry transformation and global strategy and organisation, his words should come as a beacon of hope for India.
Optimistic in his appraisal of India, Vijay stresses that the retail sector must be liberalised. "Foreign investment in this area will be good for the country. Bulk buying will affect the manufacturing industry while accelerating the need for better infrastructure. It is manufacturing that will salvage India, not IT. By 2020, we will have 800 million people in the workforce. We have to think today if we have to give them a future tomorrow," he points out.
The most urgent need is for strategic planning, stresses Vijay, a gold medallist chartered accountant who received his MBA degree and doctorate from the Harvard Business School. "As the economy grows, our infrastructure falls apart because there is no sustained five-year game plan for better roads and airports. This needs to be addressed immediately," says the man ranked by Forbes as one of the top five most respected executive coaches, and one of the top 20 North American superstars for research in strategy and organisation, and NRI World as one among the top 50 NRIs of the Year. Are India’s planners listening?
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