The narrative the world sees today is that a nation, plundered ad nauseam in the past, has scripted its own revival
Manufacturing in India. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, and NR Narayan Murthy are but a few names that are part of regular global business conversations. Their presence as global influencers in the business diaspora is a resounding statement of India’s entrepreneurial ethos. The ‘entrepreneurial hustle’ that Indians have always been credited with, is changing tonality to ‘business leadership.’ This leadership story rests on India’s cultural roots- a reverence for knowledge and the prioritisation of a ‘profit for good’ rather than just profit at any cost.
History bears scars of India’s tumultuous roller coaster ride. Let’s take a walk down memory lane.
Pre-Independence
Entrepreneurship has its roots in the barter system. Silo-ed village communities exchanged products like metal handicrafts, services for food et al. However, due to inadequate connectivity of different silos and/or villages/communities. Each individual cohort of villages would have their own currency for the local markets they served.
Serving local markets did not need scalability or manufacturing operations and yet scalability was provided through integrating various offerings under an ‘informal guild system’ that insisted on perfection, durability, and craftsmanship. With community roles clearly carved out, regional products and specialities flourished. Protection existed by default because connectivity/infrastructure was nonexistent. Being an entrepreneur was thus a rite of passage in Indian culture.
Then came the invasions by various imperial armies, which broke open the Guild System. As successive invaders marvelled at India’s arts and craftsmanship, areas of speciality products grew. Production demand was increased to meet both national and global trade across land and oceans; even as artisans did not get their due. However, under the East India Company, debilitating taxes and export-import policies crippled the local economy; production-intensive entrepreneurship declined and service-based entrepreneurship grew at a faster rate.
A few of India’s original business families started thinking in terms of large-scale operations to service local and overseas markets, as transportation infrastructure of road and rails fell in place. “Entrepreneurship” evolved into “local manufacturing” companies. This spawned a clan of entrepreneurs like the Tata’s and Wadias under the British regime; entrepreneurship was for the privileged and/or the chosen few!
Post-Independence
The Independence of India from British rule was opportunistic for the relaunch of entrepreneurship. However, the “License Raj” required that you seek permissions for type, size, markets etc; and created red tape that seemed not worth the risk for a new generation of entrepreneurs.
As the government reviewed the gaps between the haves and the have-nots and tried to include more and more people into the Indian growth story, the License Raj was brought to an end. Various state and central Government incentives were given to promote entrepreneurship. A new breed of indigenous urban entrepreneurs began to bring vibrancy to the local production theatre. However, constraints in growth capital and technical know-how remained. Hence a lot of the businesses were limited to being “local market” players, rather than participating in the global growth like in China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan driving the industrial revolution. India watched this from the sidelines.
However, it was the Indian middle class’ long term commitment to education that started to reap dividends when the winds of change started blowing. India’s educated and English-speaking workforce would become our biggest competitive edge when it came to fuelling the wealth-creation engine through entrepreneurship.
Post-liberalisation
With the dawn of liberalisation and the information age, digitalisation-enabled entrepreneurial opportunities started to appear. It seemed now that intellectual assets could be leveraged without the need for large-scale capital investments. The “ability of digital technologies” to drive higher operational efficiencies, across all disciplines of business, be it finance, manufacturing, healthcare or consumer applications opened “floodgates of opportunity” for Indian entrepreneurs across every strata of life.
As newer entrepreneurs emerged in software, education, FMCG and other brick and mortar models, there was another wave of irrationality that took over. Enterprise valuation for digital businesses became unviable, the dot com bust followed the dot com boom. It seemed that wealth creation would need a more stable and balanced approach and India’s entrepreneurs had some maturing to do.
What we have currently is the sum total of all these crests and troughs. India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem-both public and private- realises that if we do not protect the hardware of entrepreneurship (manufacturing, agriculture, energy) the software of entrepreneurship cannot sustain. Otherwise, India will follow the American narrative of dependence on China for all items they use daily and the parts for the systems they make.
And this balance projects the image of a new India on the global canvas in every sphere. Rishi Sunak might be looking at a potential premiership of the UK and Sundar Pichai has set new benchmarks for professional success.
However, it is India’s enterprise story that truly owns global mindsets. Its narrative is indelibly shaping the future of the world. While Gautam Adani talks about a ‘ global energy transition agenda’ , history stands witness to Tata’s acquisition of Corus and Reliance Industries’ acquisition of a clutch of companies ranging from telecom to retail.
The narrative the world sees today is that a nation, plundered ad nauseam in the past, has scripted its own revival. The arc from revival to dominance seems visible and probable. And this perception is owed to the wealth creation engine that Indian entrepreneurs have put in place.
The author is managing partner- the U-Group LLC & Author of ‘What Not To Do in Entrepreneurship’. Views are personal.
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Updated Date: August 30, 2022 10:00:01 IST
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