Time in India is almost up...

Today was our last lecture at SDM-IMD. Professor S. Padmanaban spoke on "E-Governance in India: Overview Imperatives & Business Opportunities". It was a very informative lecture. One piece of information that I found of particular interest was when he was discussing e-governance in India and how it involves the use of the Internet and aims at giving citizens choice of when and where they access government information and services. This explicitly relates to what Friedman was saying with his Triple Convergence idea in The World is Flat. Friedman states "It is this triple convergence--of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes and habits for horizontal collaboration--that I believe is the most important force shaping global economies and politics in the early twenty-first century. Giving so many people access to all those tools of collaboration, along with the ability through search engines and the Web to access billions of pages of raw information, ensures that the next generation of innovations will come from all over Planet Flat (181-182)". Professor S. Padmanaban said that even the farmers and the 500 or so villages that are inaccessible by road can still participate in e-governance. This is accomplished by having kiosks out in these rural areas with wireless Internet access allowing them to stay connected to e-governance. As Friedman would say, as the world is becoming flatter people can plug and play from anywhere.

Drew, Felix, Nancy and I then went to our friend's house Hareesh (auto-rickshaw driver) to have a meal for the holiday today. It was a great meal. It was also so nice to be in their home and have a real Indian experience. Although his home was small, it was actually very nice and cozy inside. As said in previous posts, even though some Indians live in small quarters, they still enjoy life and show no sign of self-pity. This is exactly what Hareesh did with his family. They were laughing like they had everything they could ask for in the world. Also, they were very hospitable which is what I have experienced throughout this whole trip. It was a really fun time. I feel like I got the best of both worlds, because I stood in a nice hotel for 2 1/2 weeks (not having to worry about cleaning the room, hot/cold water, etc.) and I also went to a locals house to have a true Indian experience. It really complemented my other experiences on the trip nicely. I feel like it was perfect timing for Hareesh to have us over, because it really ended my stay in Mysore on a positive note. Some pictures are below of our visit to Hareesh's house.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Our farewell dinner was tonight and it was at The Metropole, which not only had good food but also had a great ambiance to it. It was great to be with everyone one last time in Mysore. It was sad to say goodbye to all the SDM-IMD faculty, who proved to be great additions to our stay here in Mysore. Also, I am really going to miss the good friends that I have made on this trip. "From Minnesota to Mysore" was really an appropriate title for this course because it brought that home feeling I get in Minnesota with me to Mysore. Now all I have to do is bring everything I learned from Mysore back with me to Minnesota. Attached below are some pictures of the farewell dinner.

Also, I want to note that is my final blog. Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on it. It was really fun to share my experience and insights with you!!

Meet The Press...

We started out the day with an interesting lecture from Professor K. Balakrishnan on “Indian Perspectives in International Branding”. Some interesting points he mentioned were: -the function of branding is to create risk, -certain brands in India can only be sold in particular states of India (partly because of tax reasons), -brands become useful when the customer loses his reference points, -the objective of marketing is to disorient the customer and the objective of the brand is to reorient the customer. He then showed us some commercial clips from India to show how they differ from American commercials. To be honest, I thought they were very similar to American commercials. One of the commercials we saw for ‘Asian Paint’ had a number of good looking people going in and out of a nice house. The music playing over the commercial was very upbeat. It was eerie how similar it was to an American commercial. Another one had a wedding going on with a number of luxurious items shown in the commercial. One conclusion, I can draw out of this is that both societies (American and Indian) are obsessed with status, power, and wealth. As stated previously in my blogs, Varma discusses Indian’s obsession with these attributes thoroughly in Being Indian. I think both societies recognize this, which is why the majority of commercials we see (whether in America or India) consist of good looking people with above average houses and other extravagant items.

After class we received a copy of the Star of Mysore, a local newspaper here in Mysore. Inside was an article titled “USA students visit SDM-IMD” about us studying international business in India. Another article we saw today about some of the students in our class that were interviewed for India’s national press. To top it all off, we had a press conference with various India media. I think that it is very flattering that so much media attention has been placed on us in these last couple of weeks. I hate to go back to what Varma says in Being Indian, but I really do think it reinforces the idea of Indian’s being obsessed with power and status. I believe the reason there was so much media attention was because we were all Americans and not to sound ethnocentric but Americans are viewed very highly in India (it doesn't have to be even Americans, but any foreigners coming to India with perceived status and power). By printing articles on us, these newspapers could hopefully sell more papers because they assume more people would buy it because of their obsession with high status people.

I also wanted to mention that I participated in Indian outsourcing today. My girlfriend sent me her paper to edit for grammar. I completed it during the day here (while she was sleeping in the states) and now when she wakes up tomorrow, it will be in her inbox ready to go. This made me realize what a valuable asset this is (U.S. companies outsourcing work to India). Having now experienced it first hand, I must say it is a very efficient process. At the press conference today, when Harvey was asked by a reporter “What do American’s think about outsourcing?”, he responded “as of now they do not like it all”. I couldn’t agree more with him, all you hear from the ordinary American is how outsourcing is eliminating all the jobs in America. In the book The World is Flat, Friedman talks about this issue with Rajesh Rao, founder and CEO of an Indian game company in Bangalore. “Instead of complaining about outsourcing, said Rajesh, Americans and Western Europeans would ‘be better off thinking about how you can raise your bar and raise yourselves into doing something better…my message is that what’s happening now is just the tip of the iceberg…what is really necessary is for everybody to wake up to the fact that there is a fundamental shift that is happening in the way people are doing business. And everyone is going to have to improve themselves and be able to compete. It is just going to be one global market (190-191).’” I completely agree with what Rajesh is stating here. Change is always a very hard thing to go through, but when you want to stay a global competitor you have to be able to adapt to it in an efficient and productive manner. One thing that I am going to do to help spread the word on outsourcing as a positive business tool is exactly what Harvey said in the press conference which is “after this study abroad experience, I am going to go back home and tell people the positive experience I have had with it”. Attached are some pictures of the press conference below.

Finally, I finished off the day with a dinner at a rooftop restaurant with my good friends on the trip. We also invited in our auto-rickshaw driver who we have became close with throughout the trip (he invited us to his house for the festival tomorrow). It was a really fun dinner. Attached below is a picture of all of us at dinner.

A different kind of sightseeing…

Today I decided to sit out for the sightseeing trip just because I felt sick yesterday. It was a good decision to make because I finally got a good night’s sleep. Getting off to such a late start, I didn’t eat lunch until 2:00 pm. Believe it or not though, that is not such an unreasonable time to eat lunch in India. The time people eat in India is delayed by a couple of hours compared to America for each meal besides breakfast. The reason they do this is because they have coffee breaks in between each meal to hold them over. I thought this subtle difference between the two countries was very interesting. Anyways, after lunch Me, Felix, and Nancy went shopping around India and I had another opportunity to take in the real Indian experience. Even at this point in the trip, the amount of people in the streets and the amount of poverty we saw was still a huge culture shock. I saw a little girl holding a baby in her arm that didn’t look like it was breathing. It was definitely one of those sights that just breaks your heart.

On the way back to our hotel, we saw a bunch of Indians surrounding a building. At first, I thought it was some sort of riot or protest, but it wasn’t, it was people rushing to get into a movie theater. Felix said the reason for the chaos was because the movies in India have limited seating. This made me wonder why movies were such a big deal in India (India has the biggest film industry in the world). I think the reason why so many Indians love going to movies is to get away from the everyday horrors that so many of them have to go through. From having to worry about how they are going to feed their families to where some of them are going to sleep at night, a movie is the perfect thing that will allow them to get away from these troubles for a couple of hours. The poor are not the only ones that benefit from movies, I think the middle to upper class also enjoy movies because of the power and status obsession that Indians have (as previously mentioned in my blogs). I think they see the actors/actresses in the movies that wear nice clothing and have nice houses and they thrive off it. Varma also proposes this as a possible reason for the popularity of Indian movies in Being Indian, when he states “[referring to Indian films] Their largely escapist fare is inclusive for its deliberate avoidance of highbrow aesthetics. Their characters speak a language the common person can understand. Their fantasies provide a few hours of relief to the ordinary Indian besieged by the problems of everyday life. And their happy endings and songs and dances provide a kind of entertainment with which all Indians identify (155)”. In America, I believe that although some people see movies to escape from everyday life, I think the majority see them for pure entertainment purposes. Whereas in India, I think the opposite is true. Also, I think part of the reason Indians are known to have so much hope and resilience can be tied to the large interest in the Indian film industry. When the poorest of the poor see a movie, I think it replenishes their hope for a better future. Once again, the littlest thing I saw here (a movie theater in this case) made me realize just how many things back home I take for granted. To me a movie theater is just a place to see a movie, to an ordinary Indian it is a place to escape reality and obtain hope for a better tomorrow.

It's Temple City here...

I hate to start out another blog like this, but today started off bright and early at 6:00 am. We got picked up to go on a 2 1/2 hour bus ride to a temple that was situated on the top of a very high hill. The temple and the various statues at the top are all built on a massive rock. Once, I got to the top of the hill, the view made up for the long walk and bus ride very quickly. It was absolutely beautiful. After the walk back down, our SDM IDM representative Mr. Dwarakanath gave us each a coconut with coconut water in it which I thought was very good. It was very refreshing. Attached are some pictures of the site below.

Following the temple visit, we ate lunch at a wonderful hotel/restaurant. Then we took another bus ride to another temple. The architecture at the temple was absolutely amazing. The detail that went into each piece must have taken hours. It was sad to hear that they had a lot of theft going on in the 14th century, which is why there were so many missing pieces. I think the reason there was so much theft and other illegal activities that occurred at this temple was the reason that Varma describes in Being Indian which is "Corruption is as much about the allure of power as it is about money, and the intensity of competitive frenzy for power in this society is largely due to the fact that without power, you moral worth will not be affirmed. Corruption is a form of exercising that power" (22). When these people in the 14th century stole these parts of this sacred temple, only part of it was for money, most of it was to increase their power. In addition, there was a piece in the temple that was missing not caused by theft. Instead, the designers did this on purpose because there is no definite figure for god, so they left it blank. I thought this was a very interesting addition to the temple. Attached are some pictures of the site below.

Our third and final stop of the evening was to a temple 15 k away from the one we were at. It was again a very beautiful and well-designed temple. We didn't have a tour guide like the previous one, but I think the site spoke for itself. Also, as we were walking outside we met some really cute kids who we talked to for a while. It was very fascinating to see how different there are from American kids around the same age. They were with no adults and seemed very independent. All in all, it was a great day and completely worth the early wake up call. Attached are some pictures below of this site.

An Infosys kind of day....

Today started with an interesting lecture from Dr. L Krishnan, a managing director from Taegu Tec. Taegu Tec is a multinational company that is part of The IMC (International Metalworking Companies) Group of Companies, whose primary business is cutting tools. The tools they make are Tungsten Carbide Based and Ceramic Cutting Tools (my grandpa would be interested in this). Interestingly enough 80% of the company is owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Dr. L Krishnan told us a very interesting story how the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet, acquired some of Taegu Tec. He wrote a letter to the company because he thought it was well-run. He never even visited the company and invested over $4 billion in it. Later, he said the reason he didn’t want to visit it before investing in it was because he would have probably ended up investing more in it.

In addition, Dr. L Krishnan said that at the moment, they are not outsourcing to China because they first want to fulfill local needs. 2/3 of products are produced locally, and 1/3 are produced in Korea. He also said that in the past 3 or 4 years, manufacturing companies have starting taking a global position and they are realizing the importance of global competition. Finally, I thought the most interesting point he made was how the youth’s confidence level in India is much higher than previous generations, and they are much more willing to take risks and are more independent. He didn’t go into any detail why it is like this, but it made me reflect on Being Indian to find this out. In the book, in regards to the emergence of India has a world power in Information technology, Varma states “The right educational degree, like a career in politics, is now recognized as a passport to fast-track upward mobility. The involvement of young Indians in the infotech revolution must be seen in this context. Indian software professionals are in demand globally”(11). I think this is the reason why the youths are showing more confidence and taking more risks because they have more leverage than previous generations in India. There wasn’t the global demand for Indian manpower in the past. The youths are realizing that they are in demand and because of this they are willing to take more risks to better their careers.

Continuing with our theme of the importance of Information Technology in India, we visited one of India’s largest IT company: Infosys Technologies Ltd. As expected, the site was absolutely amazing. It looked like a resort/island/country club/etc. Rather than describe every detail, I attached some pictures below. The company’s headquarter is in Bangalore. But, we went to the campus in Mysore, which is the world’s biggest training center. The new employees stay there from anywhere between 12-18 weeks. The man who spoke to us said that once they leave, they have what’s equivalent to a Bachelors degree in computer science. He said the reason they have this training center is because in school you just learn about it, whereas in the work world you need to know how to do it. In his opinion, he said only 10% of the new employees they get there would be able to bypass the training center, which he said shows how schools are not teaching some of the essentials that work professionals need to have (ex. Soft skills). Also he touched on the flat world and Infosys’s take on it. On their website they say “Infosys defines, designs and delivers technology-enabled business solutions that help global 2000 companies win in a flat world”. They even mention employees need to “think flat”. I think this is part of the reason the company is as successful as it is because they have been pro-active on changing their business mindset. The key is addressing the challenges and opportunities of a flat world, and Infosys has definitely done this. They even devoted a whole section on the flat world on their website. With offices in 23 countries, Infosys has definitely made a name for themselves globally.

India has great service…

Today started off with a great breakfast at SDM-IMD. Then we heard a very interesting lecture from Dr. H Gayathri on the “Growth and Business Opportunities” in the Indian Service Industry. Some interesting points that I would like to share with you include:

• India’s share of exports is expected to triple in the next couple of years


• Many corporate health care service providers are focusing their destination to the remote corners of India through tele-medicine to tap the rural market (This explicitly relates to The World Is Flat, Tom Freidman says “…radiologists are outsourcing reading of CAT scans to doctors in India or Austrailia!!!…The advantage is that it is daytime in Australia or India when it is nighttime here—so after hours coverage becomes more readily done by shipping images across the globe” (16))


• India continues to be the most preferred destination for global IT sourcing due to its talent pool, top quality management and security and quality focus


• For the Indian telecommunications industry, global collaboration exists. For example, popular Indian telephone providers such as Vodaphone and Airtel are partnering with phone companies such as Nokia and Sony Erickson that are in different countries to build telecom towers


• Finally, I thought it was very interesting when Dr. H Gayathri was talking about the differences in spending between generation gaps in India. Believe it or not, it is the exact same as in America. The older generation is more price conscious and the younger generation is more brand conscious.

Next we went to Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T Ltd) for a site visit. They are India’s largest engineering and construction conglomerate. They build various infrastructures. We first went to the office (which was very modern and American looking) to eat lunch. I must say this was the best lunch I have had so far. After lunch, we heard from the head of EmSys(a branch of L&T Ltd.) operations Nagaraj. G.P. He had a very pleasant demeanor and I could tell he really loved his job. Anyways, he told us how the company was started by two Danish men in 1938 in India who couldn’t bring the company back to Denmark because of the war. Also he said that L&T Ltd. Exports 18% now compared to 2% 7 years ago. We received a tour of the site which was absolutely amazing. We then received a tour of the various branches. We found out that they make some of the games found in cell phones, various medical devices, electric meters, and also provide many IT services. As you can see they do almost anything you can think of. Gene mentioned to me that his company Oshkosh outsources services to L&T company which demonstrates that global collaboration is even occurring right near my house in Minnesota (also relates to Friedman’s flattener #5 outsourcing in The World Is Flat). I could write a book about this site visit because I learned so much from It, but don’t worry I won’t. I will just finish up with one interesting point which the head of operations mentioned which is three things that India has to focus on to really become a global competitor are improving the water, power, and road conditions. Since staying in India for the past 2 weeks, I couldn’t agree more with him. These are the only things I think that are really holding India back from becoming even more of a global competitor. (Picture of site shown at bottom)

One thing to comment on about India is that the service here is absolutely incredible. From the service we have received at the SDM-IMD institute to the service we received at L&T Ltd. , I really feel like royalty. They do all they can to make sure we are happy with everything. That is one thing I think India has the advantage on compared to the United States because you just do not see that on everyday basis in the United States. I understand part of it can be caused by the fact that we are foreigners, but I still think India’s hospitality is far superior to the United States. This surprised me because of all the negatives on Indians that Varma brings up in Being Indian, he does not mention once about the wonderful attribute Indians have, which is great service to others.

Another fun day in India...

Today was an exciting day… no class. We just had two site visits in the morning and the rest of the day to ourselves. We started out by going to the Sandal Oil factory. It was the first factory we have seen that actually met my expectations of what I imagined an Indian factory to look like. It was very old and looked run down. We saw some silk trees outside the factory which was cool to see. Also, we saw piles of sap wood that are grinded up and used to make different kinds of incense. The sandal oil smells great and is used for different kinds of soaps and perfumes/colognes. I found this very interesting because to me the wood looked like it could only be used to start a fire not as a fragrance. This factory tour made me question Tom Friedman’s book The World is Flat just because of the bad conditions at the factory. How can this factory in India compare to a factory in the United States that is in much better condition? Some of the technology also seemed outdated, such as the distillation process with the old funnel (pictures attached below). If I just toured this factory in India and didn’t stop at any other sites, I would say the United States has the advantage and the global competitive playing field is not being flattened.

Following the visit to the sandal oil factory, we then stopped at the silk factory. It had saris that were priced at $1250 (50,000 rupees). The reason it was so expensive was because of the real gold used in many of them. Unfortunately, all I could take pictures of was the outside. Just as I was starting to doubt Tom Friedman’s idea on the flattening of the world, I saw this factory which had an incredible amount of automation and amazing technological uses. It reinforced my previous notions that India is definitely becoming a global competitor. In addition, a lot of the machines used in the factory were from Japan, again showing the importance of global collaboration. It was a really cool and interesting site visit.
(Picture of visit below)

After returning from the site visits, me and Nancy went to “FabCity” which is equivalent to a Target here in India. We were both commenting how similar it was to the Target in Minnesota. I am sure it was just pure coincidence, but the workers even wore red shirts. Again, this reinforced my belief that Tom Freidman is right with his argument on the world becoming flat.