What's new

Why Are So Many of the World’s Best Companies Run by Indians?

JaiMin

FULL MEMBER
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
193
Reaction score
1
Country
Viet Nam
Location
Kuwait
And why aren’t more of those companies in India?

  • BY RUPA SUBRAMANYA
  • AUGUST 18, 2015
  • email-shares.png
gettyimages-474984752sundar.jpg

In the popular imagination, India is perhaps best known for its exports of curry, yoga, and Bollywood films. But another product is becoming a winner, too: chief executives of major multinational companies, including several based in the United States. The most recent to join this growing group is Indian-born Sundar Pichai, just named chief executive of Google after its reorganization. He joins Satya Nadella, the Indian-born head of Microsoft, who got the top job there last year; and chief executives of Indian origin have or continue to run major firms such as Citibank, MasterCard, and PepsiCo.

According to a study in Harvard Business Review, as of mid-2013, India’s export share of Fortune Global 500 company CEOs — that is, CEOs who are heads of companies headquartered in a country not their own — is 30 percent. That places India in territory comparable to countries like Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Because of the visibility of these posts, the success of Indian-born chief executives in the cutthroat global arena is quite striking to their fellow Indians. To think that a country that until recently was considered synonymous with poverty and destitution is now producing world-beating chief executives at iconic global companies is a source of national pride.

Yet for the most part, individuals like Nadella and Pichai obtained their graduate training and management expertise at top universities and firms in the United States, not in India. In other words, the success of Indian-born CEOs in America is as much about what’s right with America — or at least what used to be right before immigration became more restricted after 9/11 — as what’s right with India. In fact, it may be more about what’s gone wrong on the subcontinent.

One point of pride, at least for Indians, is that this is one area where they’re beating their archrival China. Indeed, after Nadella’s appointment to Microsoft in February 2014, there was more than a bit of soul-searching in China: According to data from mid-2013, three Indian-origin chief executives were leading Fortune Global 500 companies outside India, while China had zero. The three Indians were Lakshmi Mittal of the steel giant ArcelorMittal, Anshu Jain of Deutsche Bank, and Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo; Nadella and Pichai have now raised the total to five.

There are some simple reasons for why China fares poorly in this regard. College-educated Indians tend to speak good English and are comfortable with American business culture; that isn’t the case for many of their Chinese counterparts. And in the case of tech companies such as Microsoft and Google, there’s a natural affinity with the rich tech culture back in India that nurtured business leaders like Nadella and Pichai.

But part of the reason why you’ll see far fewer Chinese than Indians, not only as chief executives but also in the upper management tiers of large Western multinationals, is far from a positive for India. Rather, it speaks to the relative strength of the Chinese economy and areas where India continues to lag behind.

For example, large Chinese firms pay salaries to upper management that are roughly the same as or only somewhat less generous than those for similar positions in the United States, whereas Indian salaries, converted at the actual exchange rate rather than at the purchasing power of the Indian rupee, still lag behind. According to a 2014 survey by consulting firm Towers Watson, pay for top executives in China was on average more than double that in India when converted into dollars.

Also, perhaps surprisingly, despite concerns about pollution in China (though India’s is comparable, if not worse), China wins hands down as a favored destination for expats. In a 2013 survey by HSBC, China ranked No. 1 overall out of a total of 37 countries as a preferred expat destination.

In fact, firms in India seem to have little desire to tap the global labor market for top managers. Large Indian firms remain heavily dominated by local chief executives, often family members of the firm’s original management. Indian business even at the highest level — and among companies that are heavily globalized — remains largely autarkic and inward-looking. And there is good reason for this, though it does not necessarily speak well of the Indian economy.

A few years back, when Ratan Tata, head of the Tata conglomerate, stepped down after a protracted search for a replacement, his successor ended up being not a foreigner, as some had speculated, but Cyrus Mistry, a consummate insider and member of the extended Tata clan. If even the most cosmopolitan of Indian multinationals thought it wise to stick with a member of the family, rather than pick a star chief executive from abroad, then specific local knowledge and networks — including connections to powerful bureaucrats and government ministers — must remain hugely important at the top levels of Indian management. In this respect, India is much more similar to Japan or China than to the United States or United Kingdom.

So before Indians pat themselves on the back for exporting star chief executives, they might want to consider how this reflects the country’s failures. How can India produce a business environment that nurtures and provides incentives and opportunities to high-performing individuals like Nadella or Pichai, leveling the playing field with Western multinationals? And second, how can India foster a more competitive and innovative environment, one that produces new companies like Microsoft and Google?

While Indians bask in the reflected glory, the real winners are Indian-Americans. They’ll see role models they can emulate without worrying about a glass ceiling — a very American success story after all. And Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would do well to reflect on this as he prepares for a visit to Silicon Valley next month.

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source:Why Are So Many of the World’s Best Companies Run by Indians? | Foreign Policy


Interesting stuff for Indian, pakistan and bangladesh member to read:-):welcome:
 
Last edited:
Ofcourse there are two sides to every story. This is the American side.
 
i think it as got something to do with the traditional indian virtue of not being over ambitious or over zealous. in the real world one has to realize that nature is the boss and not to get fixated on sensational targets. but only focus on objectives that are in harmony with nature.
 
Political fervor , since India has cheaper resources , companies feel having Indian body at CEO level will help move jobs to India (of course does not do any thing for local workforce) but for corporations its a good deal (short term )

This is why USA needs Donald Trump
alg-donald-trump-jpg.jpg


Bring jobs back to USA


I doubt these folks are anything close to Steve Jobs or any one of that nature

Indian Management style is all about

a) Intimidation
b) Hogging on the email cc request
c) Making sure their name is present in all emails
d) Fear/ Tactics in management
e) Forming little cliques in companies , and keep knowledge hidden

The additional point in their management is .... you don't work 20 hours we will move your job
overseas
 
Last edited:
i think it as got something to do with the traditional indian virtue of not being over ambitious or over zealous. in the real world one has to realize that nature is the boss and not to get fixated on sensational targets. but only focus on objectives that are in harmony with nature.

Man! That's some heavy stuff!!!:-):p::cheers:
 
This is why USA needs Donald Trump

Trump is quite pro-India and anti-China. He targets mostly China for the job migration, whereas seems quite fond of the current Indian leadership policies.

You sure you want Trump? :woot:

Plus if you think the only reason companies are hiring Indian CEOs etc, is to help moving jobs to India, that is quite a poor analysis. It is one factor, but there are many more....with a population the size of India and the 40 - 50 years Indian economy had with one or both hands behind its back in economic progress.....India is still catching up in the level of top scale CEOs its industries can attract....so the net difference produced locally and abroad (over many years) is bound to end up in some of the top companies worldwide given the sheer size of India to begin with.

Global economy is simply coming to a more equitable distribution of CEOs and worker origin/location with regards to top notch profitable, valuable companies as China, India and developing countries in general grow and improve relative to the standard developed countries.

One can really only say it has come full circle when more name brands worldwide have their basis in India, China and other large population countries that have so far not been represented in accordance to their population size.
 
Little sense is ascribing it to a nationality. These people excelled at their jobs and the respective boards considered them to be the most suitable at a given time in the context of where they felt the company need to head.

These people succeeded because they were good at what they did - not because they belonged to or did not belong to a nationality.

Political fervor , since India has cheaper resources , companies feel having Indian body at CEO level will help move jobs to India (of course does not do any thing for local workforce) but for corporations its a good deal (short term )

This is why USA needs Donald Trump

Bring jobs back to USA


I doubt these folks are anything close to Steve Jobs or any one of that nature

Indian Management style is all about

a) Intimidation
b) Hogging on the email cc request
c) Making sure their name is present in all emails
d) Fear/ Tactics in management
e) Forming little cliques in companies , and keep knowledge hidden

The additional point in their management is .... you don't work 20 hours we will move your job
overseas

Childish - many countries have cheaper resources than India - yours would be an example - I see no Fortune 500 making any Paksistani as their CEO.

Its beyond stupid to argue that there would be such a narrow criteria for a major multi-national to chose their chief executive. You seem to have no idea as to how any of these companies function, though your posts are hilarious.

Steve Jobs - the man who was thrown out of his own company - that Jobs?

What's Pak style of management - if you have one that is - whining over what's not yours? :coffee:

As for Trump, he is a business man and a politician, that is, he is merely telling the poor voters what they want to hear, no is bringing any jobs back. Besides, if you go by his rhetoric, he is more anti-China as any sane US person should be.
 
Last edited:
To learn a business, its said that take up a job as trainee.
Indians are going through same phase, as Indians mount the laders in global organizations they are learning the skills of how to manage or build large organizations. They are networking in global business world, which will in turn help the Indian startups, we are already seeing the startup buzz happening in India and very soon we would be able to raise many global level companies. Give a decade or two the perceptions about India will change.
 
Political fervor , since India has cheaper resources , companies feel having Indian body at CEO level will help move jobs to India (of course does not do any thing for local workforce) but for corporations its a good deal (short term )

This is why USA needs Donald Trump
alg-donald-trump-jpg.jpg


Bring jobs back to USA


I doubt these folks are anything close to Steve Jobs or any one of that nature

Indian Management style is all about

a) Intimidation
b) Hogging on the email cc request
c) Making sure their name is present in all emails
d) Fear/ Tactics in management
e) Forming little cliques in companies , and keep knowledge hidden

The additional point in their management is .... you don't work 20 hours we will move your job
overseas


Dear friend...here we are talking abouts CEO's...not any programmer...But if do not have a vision how things work, then it is better to listen to others...If you think that the whole stakeholders of the company where Inidan CEO are employes are less intelligent than people in PDF, then you are just making a laughing stock of yourself by citing those reasons...

But yes, i agree with you that in programmer or entry level developer kind of role, the manager who manage these coders, are exactly like the way you mentioned.
 
what nonsense? this discussion is wrong in so many ways. There aren't that many great companies outside of India that have Indian CEOs. There are a bunch of CTOs, CIOs, numerous presidents of hospital and university departments and chief surgeons, but not that many CEOs. In fact there is case for discrimination in this respect but most execs at the level of knocking at the CEO's office door don't really want to take on the board.

It's fine to take pride but within limits.
 
8f4ef8fa-5507-4966-b280-8fce89e8c4b0.jpg

alg-donald-trump-jpg.jpg

This Trump looks like a white version Mao wearing his wig.
 

Back
Top Bottom