Sunday Posts

I am in India. I have forced myself into a 'discovery' trip - sitting across the table with potential customers and partners to understand if our ideas have any validity. This has been enormously valuable, as it should be. I have now lived through the rituals of being challenged, rejected, questioned and occasionally supported - the usual rite of passage of product creation! I am exhausted but full of ideas, and I think I know what to do next. As it was necessary, I came with an open mind. Like a start-up, I came not to 'sell' but to 'learn' [I have always taken Steve Blank's point seriously: Start-ups are learning organisations] I was not pitching, I was connecting. Coming to India after a gap of two years, I wanted to know everything that is happening, that is important. Even when people were telling me that there was no market for my idea, I was eager to know what other ideas were there. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone to step into the other perso...

The Indian economy is at a crossroad. Its internal markets have sustained the economy through the global recession of 2008/9, but as it looks beyond the pandemic, that would clearly not be enough. Its own version of 'Great Leap Forward', hastily imposed neo-liberal reforms of the economic life, has stunted the domestic demand and ravaged the banking sector - and it must find new sources of growth. The government's hopes lie in the exports - the aspiration that India could be the new China, workshop of the world. Labelled somewhat misleadingly as Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India), a new set of initiatives has been rolled out in search of this illusive export success. In this quest, India's key strength - perhaps its only one - is its people: A large working-age population ready to work for relatively cheap wage! How we view India's demographic opportunity has undergone a subtle shift - its young population was earlier seen as an exciting market and only now, as...

We have duly celebrated Jugaad and made it part of the management canon: It has now come to be seen as the ethic of Indian business, perhaps Indian life, where one has to make do with less. What seemed once an awkward thing - visitors to India would often wonder about the Bamboo scaffolding used in the construction sites, for example - has now been accepted as evidence of Indian ingenuity. We should celebrate Jugaad, and even see it as a precursor to things to come. The life of abundance, afforded by the industrial revolution, may soon face significant constraints as natural boundaries of our civilisation get exposed. And, even if this is an unreal fear, there may not be enough for the middle class millions in Asia and Africa as they aspire for good life. Improvisations, with a scene of constraint, the spirit of Jugaad, may indeed define the ethic of modern living at the periphery. However, at the same time, we must be cognizant of the effects Jugaad ethics may have on India and I...