On to the next level of growth

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: These are heady days for India Inc and is clearly the best time to be running a business. For India Inc. FY 2007 will go down as the year that dreams were made of. Tata Steel managed to fight out global opponents to pick up a company five times its size and overnight became one of the top five steel makers in the world. In the words of Rata Tata, "We had a vision to have a large share of our revenues coming in from international businesses and it looks like we have reached that milestone three years early."

The first two months of 2007 has seen Indian companies close deals to the tune of $21 billion in overseas acquisitions. During the same period, acquisitions worth $15 billion were made by overseas investors in India. The mood is obvious, India Inc. is thinking big and it is thinking beyond.

The juggernaut of the Indian economy is on a roll and is expected to keep rolling on. This ensures that there will be no dearth of opportunities to grow. The next three to four years could see corporate growth remain at high levels. The crucial factor therefore would be to manage this growth. The bar for performance has been raised and will only keep rising here onwards.

Sustaining growth is the next challenge. Indian companies have, over the last decade, demonstrated a capability to expand their mind sets and operations. Many have adapted strong governance practices and cleaned up their books. Growth in the next level would require stronger execution capabilities, especially given the fact that most of the companies have ambitious global plans.

In this, developing talent will remain crucial. Already the dearth of talented manpower is being felt in most of the growth oriented sectors. As the management guru, late Peter Drucker pointed out- developing human resources is the only way to ensure sustainable competitive advantage. There remains a lot of work to be done.