Wednesday, February 06, 2013

how India and Korea can help each other

The Vice Chairman & CEO, Videocon Industries (formerly LG India head), takes a break from company matters and talks to B&E’s Deputy Editor Virat Bahri, on his unique perspectives of how India and Korea can help each other achieve their objectives

B&E: And what does India need to learn, in your view?
KRK: For India to continue on 8-10% growth, India must focus on hard culture – manufacturing. Everyone cannot be intellectual, so more manufacturing focus is needed to create more employment. Also India has to push exports. In Korea, exports helped us move out of poverty. In Korea, our market size was small till about 30 years ago. In India also, though the population size is big, per capita income is very small. So you have to develop the exports and create more employment; then these newly people will buy more products and the domestic market will also grow. Korean companies can help Indian companies in the realm of application technology. If the two countries can benchmark each other, it will be great for the future.

B&E: How can India improve on its manufacturing competitiveness in the global market?
KRK: As per my view, Indian companies have to pay more attention and focus on R&D and quality. Without that, you cannot be successful in the global market. By R&D, I do not mean only high quality R&D or absolutely genius inventions. The global market is so competitive; so cost innovation also comes from R&D – cheaper, better products – what we call application technology can be invented. There are a lot of great technologies. How we can adopt and apply them in our factories is the question. But for R&D and quality, there is no free lunch. It has to be continuous investment. In the last 30 years, Korea, and of course, Japan, have invested continuously in R&D and quality every year – investment has to be in terms of people, money and time. For even if you have people and money, you cannot do it overnight. The Indian government must focus on R&D and quality investment with speciaI tax benefits, support from banks, et al. You have good manpower. I have experienced over the past 12 years. Indian employees are excellent, but continuous investment in R&D is a must. Every year, our mainstream media picks up best entrepreneurs; but I am looking for a best quality/R&D reward being instituted. Entrepreneurship cannot go a long way without R&D and quality. The same goes for agriculture, where India can improve its productivity by over ten times through the right R&D initiatives. Another strong point for India is the language. Most people can speak English fluently; which is a big advantage in global market.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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