Globally Speaking: Indian Exec tells it like it is
It’s a characteristic of CEO’s who are also founders of companies to speak more frankly than appointed heirs. Scott McNealy, founder of Sun Microsystems and CEO for over 20 years, was an iconoclast who spoke fearlessly of things as he saw them.
Last Saturday’s interview with Infosys founder and CEO Nandan Nilekani in the Financial Times (subscription required) is an example of CEO who is a company founder speaking candidly on a global scale.
Nilekani is famous for inspiring Thomas Friedman to write The World is Flat.
His views on the changing world economic landscape and the outsourcing of jobs from the west to India and China are uncompromisingly rooted in history:
Two hundred years back, India and China were 50 per cent of global GDP, but both, for different reasons, opted out of the race. In China, they turned inwards and in India we had the empire. The next century is an opportunity to redeem some of that: the flat world has created a unique confluence of circumstances which will have a huge impact on all our lives.
He challenges the inherent right of Westerners to a high standard of living:
I don’t think that a high standard of living is an entitlement. I don’t think the world can live with everyone driving an SUV. Somethings got to give. It’s just become more competitive. If Indians and Chinese can work 80- 100 hours a week and they are part of a global, fungible labor market, it’s going to have an impact on living standards in the west.”
While acknowledging infrastructure problems in Bangalore (a dysfunctional city) and the narrow base of Indian IT, Nilekani believes “the tide has turned” with the west.
It’s encouraging to hear such plain spoken CEO.
Which American or European executives would dare to disagree?
And what would they say that wouldn’t disturb the fragile relationship with their own employees (skittish about losing jobs to Banagalore and South China) and their overseas partners who man the call centers and manufacture most of what they sell? Hardly “You’re right. We’re busy driving down standards of living among our employees and doing our bit to hasten the decline of the West.”
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