India loses its Davos sparkle – Peter Gumbel
SOURCE: The Time
DATE: Jan 29th, 2009
Mohit Soapbox:
Came across this interesting article by Peter who is at the World Economic Forum. This year the world is focused less on growth stories and more on survival stories and how to get out of the crisis we are in. So the focus away from India is but obvious. It is also true that this showcases how interconnected the world is and the dependency globally across countries is become like the tangled wires next to my home entertainment center. The challenge for developing economies like India is that will they still continue to be global growth engines when this is all over ( which I hope happens soon!). The recent scandal at Satyam, the risk of doing business in India plus the fractious political system does not help. Corporates in India have a larger responsibility to not only meet corporate objectives but social and political directions in the country. Is the leadership in India ready for the challenge to continue to be a global player ?
ARTICLE
For several years now, India has brilliantly used the World Economic Forum to propagate a new international image – that of an exciting and dynamic place in the throes of change, a must destination for international investment. In Davos, the Indians threw the best parties, laid on the most stimulating discussions and, generally, were impossible to overlook. That gave rise to a flood of international publicity, most of it flattering.
But this year, the shine’s off. The worldwide economic crisis has refocused the attention of the 2,000 plus delegates in Davos on critical issues of financial stability and governance, in which India is only a peripheral player. India’s growth is still robust, but no longer stellar. Exports are down, as is the rupee. Outsourcing and foreign direct investment are out of fashion. Security is suddenly a pressing issue after the Nov. terrorist attacks in Mumbai. And worst of all, the country is now plagued by a huge corporate scandal, at outsourcing firm Satyam, that has fairly or not put a dent in the reputation of India Inc.
There are two obvious signs of this change in Davos. First is the social scene, which the Indians dominated ever since 2006, when several companies bandied together to launch a marketing assault that included handing out iPods to all delegates, flying in the country’s best chefs and plastering “India Everywhere” posters around the Swiss mountain town. This year, the Indian parties so far have been conspicuously empty. I went to a Wipro cocktail at the Hotel Europe last night hosted by chairman Azim Premji that attracted no more than 20 people in the hour I spent there. Premji was a charming host, although he moved on quickly after I asked him whether the Satyam scandal was affecting Wipro. Another party thrown by the auto firm Bajaj didn’t pull a big crowd either, I was told by a couple who dropped by.
More seriously, this morning, Deutsche Bank hosted a breakfast about India that featured an all-star cast of speakers, including Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a key government planning official, and industry titans Anand Mahindra, who runs an industrial empire and telecoms magnate Sunil Bharti Mittal. Instead of the self-confident message of the past three years -”We are the new global force to be reckoned with” – the tone was a lot more muted. India’s still a great place with a great future, they said, but it has some important issues to work through in the short term. Anshu Jain, the London-based head of Deutsche Bank’s global markets division who chaired the meeting, summed it up aptly when he said, “It felt like India was all the rage. The question now is whether the pendulum has now swung the other way.”
It probably hasn’t. But for now, India is no longer everywhere, at least at Davos.
No relate
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
