Global Perspective of ‘People’ in India

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World is appreciating and recognizing ‘people’ from India, then why is India lagging to figure out the projection of investment from its own ‘people’? Why isn’t India able to harvest it and reap itself huge pool of benefits?

Japan has leveraged its cultural emphasis on ‘efficiency and team work’, to revolutionize the manufacturing and engineering industries. The Republic of Korea (Korea) has utilized its cultural emphasis on ‘speed’, and it has built some world-class companies such as Samsung and LG.

China has sustained a GDP growth of more than 10% for more than two decades by virtue of its ‘ability to scale’. The United States of America (USA) and Israel have leveraged the diversity of their populations to lead innovation globally.

I firmly believe that now it is India’s turn to push itself up to the global platform by innovating and not by imitating. Variety of Indian startups are turning up for the same e-commerce models as pictured by the western world. But, I present to them some factual arguments that will change the course of their journey and collectively take India to a position of innovator from a position of follower.

Several reports and studies certify the fact that India is now being recognized as an exciting opportunity with overflowing talent. IMF reported India as the world’s fastest growing economy which has its ‘people’ powered for growth with about 160 M smartphone users, 277 M internet users, vast SME market and technology trends.

The median age of India's population as a whole is 28 which is significantly lower than that of regional peers China and Japan, at 37.6 and 44.4 respectively and a younger majority of ‘people’ will result in having more innovative minds. It also means that we are able to better leverage technology and increase efficiency. Since we are sure about these numbers, we already are in a position to best utilize these ‘people’.

A report of NY Times has ranked India 55th among 150 countries in the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index and it claimed India to be the most favored destination for FDI in 2015. These investments are primarily focused on the ‘people’ here. Instead of they invest here, why shouldn’t we invest here?

There is an estimate of about 800 M ‘people’ who will be working by 2021 along with a positive insight of huge opportunities in formal employment sector from NSSO. India's "demographic dividend" therefore has this window of opportunity that these ‘people’ can utilize to strengthen our economy. It is estimated to add about 2 percentage points to the country's annual growth rate over the next two decades.

Let us look at few studies that stamp the assertions presented above.

No. 1 Talent Destination for emerging markets

Ahead of China, Singapore, and Hong Kong

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Clearly, India is number 1 talent destination in all respects amongst the emerging markets. I am not putting this forward to engineer facts in favor of others rather I want to reverse engineer facts for our benefit. Let us look forward to understand the reverse engineering process I am talking about.

Global majors aggressively accessing Indian talent pool

A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index, 2016

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All the mentioned companies represent the strength of the country and reveal their first mover strategy to build upon the existing competitive advantages. They are leveraging our talent pool in our home to establish their PODs. How about, making ‘people’ a POD for India and commercialize it to land up as leader in a self-created space.

Yes! I am talking about pCommerce instead of e-commerce to fuel India’s growth as a leader of the globe. pCommerce will disrupt a niche market space and give birth to more ‘people’ platforms like Youth4work. These platforms will help India to innovate and get itself recognized as an innovator and a leader!