?Made in India? is still to acquire an inspirational platform globally. Post-economic reforms, 22 years ago, foreign companies came in with global expertise and knowhow. They suddenly roused the economy with inflow of investment. They outsourced ITES services supplied by low-cost human trade and India gained the reputation of having a knowledge industry. Yet the country does not have a value-driven brand that?s recognised globally.
On the other hand, China, earlier known for cheap quality, today puts its ?Made in China? manufacturing signature on the world?s most coveted, inspirational brand like Apple. This means ?Made in China? has become global standard for even sophisticated products today. Korea, too, insignificantly tucked away in northern Asia, has done a phenomenal job of mesmerising the world with its brands, making Samsung, LG, Hyundai among others, into household names in every country. None of all these advancements have happened with any fundamental innovation. They are all examples of outstanding application work. They have been executed with hard work, elegance, high quality and innovative customer interface.
India?s basic education and professional learning system is driven by memorisation or learning by rote, which hamper the thirst for inventive application. Mechanical mugging is done through ?mug books? or a series of question-and-answer publications that show the way to score high on written exams. Learning by heart has been a malaise in China too where six million students take exams every year. Yet they have been able to emerge from it to create value differentiation in the market. Discipline, process and creativity have played their roles proving that China has gone beyond the learning by rote pattern into expressive delivery excellence.
The learning by rote culture has not de-scaled in India. As per a McKinsey study, a very high percentage of educated professionals are not qualified for high-end jobs. They comprise 75% engineering graduates, 85% finance and accounting professionals and 90% professionals with other degrees. This means that only a few educational institutes equip students for professional competence. The balance 25% engineering graduates, 15% finance and 10% other degree professionals are competent for high-end jobs corresponding to the degrees they got because they got through by rote learning. A telling example is that only 3% Indian academics publish research papers in science as opposed to 60% US academics.
Before liberalisation, the Indian market was demand-less, that is, the saving mentality was on. Post-1991, sudden economic power created the shift to a demand-led market with tremendous choice offered by foreign players. So clearly an opportunity was there for value addition but Indian industry did not take it up. Again the root of this can be traced to rote learning as that pollutes the foundation of learning and does not allow people to be inventive in any situation. A value-led market can only be created by a learning system that calls for analysis and encourages following a process for problem solving by individual innovative expression. Most Indian enterprises are more focused and feel comfortable spending money in tangible assets rather than taking risks in greenfield areas. But the inviting market opportunity here has brought in global companies in droves. They?ve set benchmarks, even changed our purchase and usage pattern. For example, Indians were proud to say their refrigerator lasts 40 years. But the Koreans arrived to put new departure of changing Indian habits. With contemporary design and technology resulting in better functionality, refrigerators are changed every five years now.
Even the luxury retailing market, quite unknown earlier, has luxury products growing by 30% today. The luxury sector was R310 billion in 2010 and pegged to be R807 billion by 2015. Smaller cities are also becoming a big hub for luxury brands that are adapting to Indian conditions. For, festive gifting luxury brands are combining local and cultural elements into their own creations. French luxury brand Hermes, best known for their R19,182 plain white T-shirts and R5,48,550 handbags, entered India with a line of fancy saris. Hermes expects to launch a perfume specific to India too. The government has allowed 100% foreign direct investment in single-brand retail so other luxury brands like Italian apparel Emilo Pucci will start operations soon. Louis Vuitton is bringing in three premium brands, beauty retail chain Sephora, Singapore fashion company Sincere and Hong Kong-listed Emperor Watch and Jewellery.
In practical business, people in India very clearly become highly inventive where rote learning does not work. Driving in crowded Indian streets and off-roads with one leg continuously on the brake and a hand on horn against all international conventions is an example. When I ask people why they drive in the middle of the road, the answer is that both sides have to be kept as walking paths. There?s the famous inventive use of the washing machine in busy roadside dhabas of Punjab. Instead of putting clothes in it, they efficiently whirr buttermilk or yoghurt in bulk for making delicious, frothy lassi in a jiffy. In adverse situations when some water-logged roads become streams during the rains, rickshaw pullers have managed to put rubber tubes that make their rickshaws float in flooded streets then run again normally on non-flooded streets. So clearly there?s no dearth of intelligence, but the education system where rote learning reigns supreme make it very difficult for qualified executives to drive business through inventive application.
When a country is highly driven by rote learning, breaking the education mold is the only avenue for inventive application. Already the education market is growing at 14% and here, too, foreign institutions are tying up with Indian colleges to offer different education programmes. Focus on ?employability education? is being attempted in a few schools, colleges and universities across India. Industry needs to strengthen executive education so that they can create the value-led market in the tremendous business opportunities available in unpredictable India.
Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com