In a damning indictment of the state of affairs in Greece last week, Jeremy Warner, one of UK?s leading journalists made some interesting points. An economy which needs to slash at least another one lakh jobs is already trending youth unemployment at over 50% and even the private sector can?t rescue the country from slipping down the slope towards economic depression. Continuous flight of capital, alarming decline of credit availability and a banking system on the verge of collapse do not leave any growth paths open unless Greece chooses to leave the euro, which could lead to a contagion that would eventually break the single currency that unifies the European Union. With the new Greek regime finding an ally in the newly elected Francois Hollande in France, fiscal expansionism could now replace the climate of austerity which will leave Berlin in a quandary in its attempts to save a nasty situation from becoming worse!
In our own country, the spirit of gloom and doom that has been generated by the present political and economic turmoil and too many half-hearted attempts by the government to stimulate both the currency and the economy may well be conjuring up in many minds the spectre of a Europe like crisis. With inflation refusing to abate, growth sliding to 6% or lower and the opportunity to create enough jobs and move many more millions above the poverty line lost at least for the time being, the pessimists could be excused for painting a worst case scenario for India. But there are opportunities galore for creating employment and economic regeneration in the short to medium term.
One such opportunity lies in the new rainbows that the IT industry is chasing today?the entrepreneurial opportunities in developing products that address key discontinuities in the existing services offerings, the internet and e-commerce opportunities and new areas like media and gaming that are already becoming a focus area for countries like Japan Korea and China. None of these areas needs a proven track record or demonstrated competencies because most of them are evolving opportunities. For example, who would imagine that multi-player gaming on the internet or end-to-end development and support of cloud hosted software platforms and applications would become such a big opportunity area for entrepreneurs?
The creation and support of thousands of start-ups to grab a disproportionate share of opportunity for India could be a phenomenal vision and if the eco-system is willing to support the idea, we could be looking at over a million jobs created in the next few years. And the application of these principles in other industry segments could see a hundred million new jobs as a transformational outcome for the country that would lift us clearly above the current morass.
One of the biggest issues that India is facing is the absence of capable entrepreneurs to build the new Googles and Facebooks in the tech industry and indeed the new Suzlons and ICICIs in the traditional industries, technology and management schools have tried to promote the concept of entrepreneurship but their graduates have little or no industry experience. Traditionally, well settled executives in the corporate sector have a marked reluctance to risk leaving cozy jobs and venture into entrepreneurship. The net result is that there are just not enough fundable start-up ideas coming through to willing entities like the Indian Angel Network and the host of well-meaning venture capital and angel groups in the country.
It is necessary to find a way out of this impasse. Research in the US shows that there are many more successful and scalable start-ups set up by mid-career executives with good academic records than by Ivy League school drop outs or very young visionaries. All industry associations have to think about methods to encourage successful corporate executives to take the plunge into start-ups in the coming years.
The IT industry in India often prides itself at having developed into a world beating $50 billion export industry with little or no support from the government. However to give the government its due, many worthy bureaucrats like N Vittal, secretary of the erstwhile department of electronics who gave India the path breaking Software Technology Parks of India scheme and successive ministers have done their bit to support the process. Today, the government seems to be ignoring the huge headroom that still exists to grow multiple new companies in hitherto unexplored segments in IT. The same approach taken to identifying and nurturing opportunities in healthcare, microfinance, manufacturing and even e-government can change the face of our economy in a few years!
On the economic front, we may be passing through a period of despair but as Akash Prakash, CEO of Amansa Capital points out, the investment attractiveness of a large domestically oriented economy growing at 7% with 15% earnings growth cannot be denied. With all the structural positives that this country still holds, we can expect to get our fair share of future global fund inflows, but the spirit of new entrepreneurship will have to take the country forward to the next sigmoid of growth!
The writer is vice-chairman & MD of Zensar Technologies and Chairman of the National Knowledge Committee of the CII