India: A Services Based Economy

More Kiran Karnik, who as I mentioned in my previous post, was the closing keynote speaker at the Indian Business Conference 2008.

As the former President of Nasscom, Karnik focussed on IT and its benefit to society and also on India’s attempt at shifting from a service based economy toward manufacturing.

India’s GDP: 22% agriculture, 54% services

IT-BPO exports = 40 billion dollars = 5.5% of GDP

Distribution of exports by region: Bangalore 36%, Delhi/Noida/Gurgaon 17%, Mumbai/Pune 15%
How is IT benefiting the Indian society?
* Gender Equality: Young women earning at par with male counterparts.
* Good work ethic: Long working hours in a professional work environment.
* Application towards public service and social causes: NGO emergency services, online payment of bills, online rail reservation, etc.
Total organized labor force in India = 15M; IT accounts for nearly 2M direct jobs, and 7-8M indirect jobs (support/household services).

As a services-based economy, India is losing out on its two competitive advantages:
* Rupee getting stronger against the dollar.
* Wage inflation – salaries rising 15-20% every year.

Problems with the education system in India:
* Individualized – no group projects or class discussions; the only team work is when students decide to collaborate during exams (cheat)!
* Poor talent pool – Only 25% grads are suitable for direct employment, the remaining 75% varying degrees of training.

Photo courtesy: NYTimes.com from a recent article about debt collection services moving to India.

Indian Mythology Industry – Third Incarnation

Last week, ACK media announced the acquisition of a popular Indian comic book brand Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle for $2.5 millon and is reportedly planning to invest $15-20 million in the next 3 years.

Samir Patil, founder investor and CEO of ACK Media told Hindustan Times: “It is a 100 per cent cash deal. We are looking to invest $15-20 million over the next two to three years to make use of opportunities in licensing content and characters, intensifying retail penetration and introduce more offerings in the digital medium.”Â

Smart move by ACK media, in acquiring the IP rights to popular Tinkle comic characters Suppandi, Shikari Shambu, Nasruddin Hodja, Kaalia the crow, Tantri the Matri, and the crew. I’m pretty sure the $20 million investment is largely towards digitizing these comic book characters into feature film releases.

The animation industry in India is heating up – Â opened up by the successful release of India’s first animation film Hanuman in 2005, and now followed by a sequel Hanuman returns, and a bunch of other big-budget and big-banner animation movies in the pipeline. With India being the most religious country in the world, most of the animation movies are based on Indian mythology characters India.Â

For the publishing and media companies, this is the third incarnation of the Indian mythology characters over the last 40 years – same stories, but packaged in a different format…

 1967: Anant Pai, the father of Indian comics, partners with India Book House to launch Amar Chitra Katha after contestants fail to answer questions on Indian mythology. If you, like me, grew up in early the 80’s, Amar Chitra Katha was the only source for Indian mythology characters besides, of course, your parents and grandparents.

1987: Then in the late 80s, Ramanand Sagar produced Ramayan, the first epic TV serial that ran for years. It was immensely successful and spawned a new industry of Indian epics made for TV – followed by Maharabhata, Krishna, and a few others.

2007: India’s first animation movie, Hanuman, is released in 2005 opening up the animation industry in India. And according to this IndiaFM article, bg names in Bollywood are falling over each other to hit the market with new animation movies based on mythology characters from popular characters like Hanuman and Krishna to little-known characters like Ghatothkach.

Datta Meghe CoE: What’s up with the board of directors?

I never paid attention as to who’s on my school’s board, not when I enrolled to Datta Meghe College of Engineering (DMCE) for my Bachelors or at NYU Stern for my MBA. I don’t think any student ever does. But I would imagine the board of directors/trustees are important people entrusted and responsible for the management of the school.

So as I was randomly clicking around on the newly redesigned DMCE website, I was surprised at the composition of my alma mater’s board – 5 business men/women, 1 Advocate, 1 Hotelier, 1 Farmer and 1 Fashion Designer. You have to wonder, isn’t this an engineering school? So what are these people doing on the board? Shouldn’t there be any active or retired senior managers from engineering companies and academic scholars or professors on the board?

Did you ever wonder who’s on your school board? Do you think it matters?