The most powerful woman in the post-millennial business world is an NRI. It’s official. Forbes says so. For four years running, the distinguished business magazine has ranked Indra Nooyi at the top of its Most Powerful Women in Business list, as well as placing her third on its Most Powerful Women list in 2008 and 2009. She is the chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo. She shares a birthday with Bill Gates. She counts Henry Kissinger as a close personal friend. She is married with two daughters, one adult and one teenaged. She is an avid supporter of the New York Yankees. Still, while a profile of this remarkable woman can call upon any number of career highlights and snippets of family information, one question remains in doubt: who is the real Indra Nooyi?

“We are in an era of profound change,” Nooyi repeatedly says in interviews. By contrast, her life has been relatively straightforward. Born in Chennai in 1955, Nooyi’s southern Brahmin upbringing could be called privileged by Indian standards and gives the first clue to unlocking her character. Her father was a banker and her grandfather a district judge, and her parents wasted little time educating her in the values they expected to hold. There was a particular emphasis on thought towards the future – both her own (she and her sister had contests to see who could give their mother the best speech about what they wanted to be) and that of the world (problems of global affairs posed by her parents at the dinner table).

After obtaining her B. Sc. In Chennai and an uninspiring Masters experience at Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, Nooyi took a job managing the production of Stayfree sanitary pads. Perhaps not surprisingly, she sought a higher calling, got herself into Yale School of Management and elected to join the NRI contingent. Several management positions of increasing importance through the 80s and early 90s revealed her to have a calm eye for the right opening and an iron will to succeed. It was inevitable that she would be picked up by a massive multinational. The only question was over which one would secure her signature first. PepsiCo won the race.

Nooyi’s now-famous rise and rise through the PepsiCo ranks, helped by her connection to the enormous potential in the Indian market, has led her to the point where she is shaping social and economic trends rather than merely observing them. Watching her speak, her personal buzzwords roll repeatedly off the tongue: ‘Performance with Purpose.’ ‘Good for you’ products versus ‘fun for you’ products. ‘How can we do better by doing better?’ While she clearly sees any public stage as an advertising opportunity above all else, she never comes across as a corporate machine, but also keeps her personal life close to her chest. Her role at PepsiCo is what publicly defines her, and that is exactly how she wants it. Such a talent for self-preservation indicates that a political career beckons, probably within the next five years, probably in the United States.

What is perhaps most inspiring about Nooyi is the seamless melding of cultures she brings to work. As Americans are implored to become more family-oriented, for Nooyi, this is a constant fact of life. Example: from the start of Nooyi’s tenure at the head of PepsiCo, she wrote personal notes every quarter to the spouses of her executives, but still felt she wasn’t doing enough to forge the bonds of a ‘PepsiCo family’. After a trip back to India, she was reminded that in the Indian family, you are always your parents’ children; she realised that her executives were all kids once, too, and decided to start writing to their parents every quarter as well – something an American CEO would never dream of. The response, in Nooyi’s words, was “huge”.

Again, however: who is the real Indra Nooyi? While most of her personal anecdotes are obviously premeditated to humanise her, she refuses to be drawn on more private details, such as her daughter’s resentment at her focusing more on career than on being a mother. Nooyi speaks of her own mother frequently – incredibly, she had to ask her permission before taking the CEO job at PepsiCo – and hints of resentment crop up there, too, but only fleetingly. She knows that however hard her mother has been on her, it is all out of a desire for her daughter to be the best she can possibly be. Perhaps she introspects about her own failings in private so she can present herself as a well-rounded leader in public… though where she would find the time to do so in-between meetings, flights and her beloved Yankees is a mystery.

As an NRI, Indra Nooyi is something of a standard bearer, showing that it is possible for an Indian – and a woman, at that – to lead one of the largest companies in the world through times of turmoil and on to great heights. If her nature behind closed doors remains elusive, her ‘rockstar CEO’ public image befits her status as a widely respected leader in the business world. Her initiatives at PepsiCo have been stimulated equally by profit and social conscience and have taken them almost completely out of the shadow of Coca-Cola. It has come so far that here in India, one of the world’s biggest markets, if you ask any shop-worn bakery proprietor or restaurant waiter for a ‘Coke’, they inevitably return with a Pepsi – though in keeping with her business-only persona, Nooyi would quickly state that “it’s a PepsiCo thing, not an Indra Nooyi thing”.

Just as the euphoria over the Women’s Reservation Bill settles down, another exciting announcement comes from the political corridors in New Delhi. After almost 15 years of debate, the Union Cabinet has unanimously approved a bill that will allow foreign universities to set up shop in India. Until now, an FDI of 100% is allowed in the education sector but international universities have not been allowed to have their own campuses in the country. They can only collaborate or have link programs with Indian universities. This bill proposes to change that and soon Indian students will be able to get a degree from a foreign university without having to actually go abroad.

This bill opens up a whole gamut of opportunities for foreign universities wanting to tap into the massive higher education market in India, at a time when government funding and budgets are being squeezed in countries like the UK because of the global financial crisis. There are already over 200 collaborations or joint programs up and running and given the enormous demand for quality education among India’s burgeoning middle classes, there is a big opportunity in the waiting. With a severe shortfall of good colleges and universities equipped to meet the current needs and demands of students, the wealthier lot often choose to go abroad because of issues like quotas and reservations. India faces an annual outflow of over $4 billion every year, not to mention the flight of talent who eventually choose to settle abroad causing what is often referred to as the ‘brain drain’.

This bill will hopefully arrest that, at the same time giving more students who cannot afford to study overseas a chance at getting a foreign degree at home. What’s more, this would hopefully be an incentive for Indian universities to get their act together as they are faced with more competition. On the other hand, it could also help draw more foreign students to the country and help India build its image as the next education hub. With its exotic appeal and cheap conversion rate it is foreseeable that many foreign students wanting a bit of adventure would come and spend a year doing a master’s program. Also, the English language gives India an added advantage.

There are worries, though, that if not properly regulated and overseen for quality and curriculum this could turn into a money-making racket. It wouldn’t be difficult for bogus colleges to pay off officials and get licenses given the huge corruption in the Indian bureaucracy. There are far too many private sector colleges (often run by politicians) engaging in dubious money-making activities, and it isn’t entirely impossible to envisage such a scenario with foreign players.

But on the whole, this is a big step forward in realizing India’s longstanding need for good higher education institutes and also a massive business opportunity for foreign universities. Of course, it remains to be seen how soon it is voted into law given the balancing act the government often has to do in coalition politics (it has already hit its first roadblock with the opposition objecting to it), but at least it is the first step in the right direction.

This week wasn’t the first time that Barack Obama spoke out against outsourcing. He has been categorical in his stance about the issue right from the time he started campaigning for his presidency, where he promised to stop American companies shipping jobs overseas from getting tax breaks. This created a bit of a panic among IT players in India who viewed it as a veiled threat to outsourcing, one of India’s largest export-driven industries today. His most vicious attack was in May 2009, right in the midst of the recession, when he said something to the effect of ‘Say no to Bangalore and yes to Buffalo’.

Many brushed aside his comments saying they were more political than anything else, and had no linkage whatsoever to IT or BPO outsourcing.  Since then there is a broader consensus among Indian IT giants that Obama’s proposals are aimed more at correcting US taxation anomalies, rather than targeting India. In fact most IT companies say that even if Obama does clamp down on US companies by cancelling their tax breaks, the cost advantage of outsourcing work to India would be still far greater than shifting jobs to the US, and hence there was no threat at all!

So despite such confidence, why does every comment of Obama’s on this issue still create a flutter? Why do the Indian media go berserk, frantically asking for ‘all is well’ reassurances from CEOs when the US president says something remotely linked to protecting American jobs?

Well the fact is, this is more of an emotional response than anything else. This phenomenon called outsourcing has been something of a life changer for us Indians. It created a new breed, a new generation of upwardly mobile whiz kids who’d never seen money before becoming overnight millionaires. These were middle class guys who made their fortunes without godfathers, without the backing of a family legacy and without sucking up to politicians. It empowered hundreds and thousands of college-going Indians, gave them respectable jobs in call centers. It created new age cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune and brought India on to the world map. It revolutionized the concept of doing business and making money in India, and continues to do so as its effects are slowly felt in massive job creation and prosperity across small town India. Most importantly, it reinvigorated the entrepreneurial spirit in us that had been so brutally curbed during the license Raj. Of course, none of us would want this dream to go sour, and hence all the hoo-ha!

Any suggestion that this party might come to an end will of course elicit strong reactions. After all, the story of Indian outsourcing is the story of India’s coming of age. In the last 10 years the industry grew from being a $4.8 billion industry to crossing the $50 billion mark. And even in what has been one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression, Indian IT companies have emerged relatively unscathed, despite relying heavily on clients from the US to do business. Of course there have been contract renegotiations and a cut in IT budgets, but the fact that all of them are still talking of heady growth going forward is proof enough of the sector’s resilience.

Of course, with exports making up to 70% of the sector’s revenues, there are serious concerns over any protectionist moves by the US. But the fact is NASSCOM; the industry body for Indian IT companies says the domestic IT & BPO market is expected to grow by a whopping 12% this year as compared to an export growth of just 5.5%. That clearly says something. There is huge scope for domestic growth and instead of fretting over what happens to contracts from the US, it is perhaps time to tap that potential and look inwards to drive sales. The Indian government’s IT spending itself is expected to double this year and experts predict there is going to be a massive demand from the private sector, especially emerging businesses such as healthcare and retail, who will need to streamline their backend operations.

Not such a big cause for concern then, is it?! After all, who better to rely on for growth than a population of a billion plus who come up with savvy new demands day after day?

It’s that time of the year when Industry bodies and India Inc present their wish lists to the Finance Minister as he gets set to present his annual budget. It is a keenly anticipated event for news channels and the national press, replete with round table discussions and post mortem analyses on the hits and misses. Editors and economists get into the nitty gritty of taxes, policy reform and growth targets and discuss how the markets will react to the announcements in the budget. For the government itself, it is more often than not a PR exercise, a chance to show the country what they have achieved and what they plan to do. But amid all this rhetoric, the media often tends to forget whether the real issues are being addressed, and whether things on the ground have changed for the common man vis a vis the last year or the year before that.

So to move away from the regular format, last year my editor at Bloomberg UTV suggested we do something different. Leave the rhetoric behind in the studios and go on the ground to find out just where we stand on the basic issues that bother us every day. Issues like food, water, sanitation, infrastructure, education, healthcare etc. After all, these are the things that really matter to the common man, not the fine print on second generation reforms or extension of excise duties to industries. At the outset it looked as if we would be tackling motherhood problems and it would turn into yet another ramble on how bad things are, but quite to the contrary, it was an interesting exercise for anyone wanting to explore the large scale systemic problems a country like India faces. The statistics are alarming and the reality depressing.

Let’s take education, for instance, to illustrate just how government after government has failed in its promise to improve things. For years, the centre has been steadily increasing its outlays on education, but still the gross enrolment ratio in higher education is not even half that of the developed world. And what’s surprising is that despite a sum total of 20,000 colleges up and running in the country, report after report suggests that 40-50% of graduates in India are unemployable and lack the basic skills needed to enter the workforce. Even UNESCO has ranked India the lowest among BRIC nations in terms of expenditure on higher education per student.

Of course one could argue that we have premier institutions like the IITs and IIMs, but the fact remains that the overall quality of our colleges and universities leaves a lot to be desired. No wonder then that over 4,50,000 Indian students go abroad every year to study. That’s an outflow of $13 billion every year, enough to create 20 IITs annually.

I could give statistic after statistic on how every aspect of our existence is affected because of the systemic problems that have been left unaddressed. (India’s annual food wastage due to the lack of adequate warehousing facilities, for instance, is enough to feed the population of Japan; it takes 527 days to obtain a license to do business in the city of Ranchi vs. 2 days in Australia) But the fact is, it is these basic problems in India that are going to be the biggest impediment to growth even as we make big headway in every field.

In fact, as the West grapples with an economic recession where low growth rates and stagnation threaten to prolong the crisis, every Indian industrialist you speak to says it is the opposite for India – not low growth but niggling issues like these that are going to be the big worry for us as we march towards becoming an economic super power. Crumbling infrastructure, lack of adequate manpower and massive red tape are the top 3 concerns on every industrialist’s wish list. Just last month, in fact, UK steel magnate L N Mittal made his displeasure vocal about the slow pace of progress of his projects in India.

At the end of it, with a clear mandate and some very experienced leaders at the helm, everyone says India’s time is now and the government should seize this opportunity to address these problems. After all, announcing big ticket reforms and grandiose plans for growth wouldn’t yield much success if the basic wherewithal to support this growth is missing.

It’s been a spectacular season for the big auto giants in India. Take a glance at the quarterly numbers pouring in and you’ll know what I mean. The biggies Maruti Suzuki, M&M, Bajaj Auto and Hero Honda all seem to have shown rather impressive results with both quarterly and yearly profits soaring and sales picking up after what has undoubtedly been a tough year for the industry around the globe. Maruti’s profits have trebled and M&M saw its profits jump a whopping 848% year on year. Analysts say the festive season combined with a pickup in sentiment and the government’s stimulus efforts have paid off and low interest rates along with a spate of new launches by companies has kept the interest among consumers alive. In fact, they say the next year will be even better!

Testimony to this is the huge interest built up among global auto giants betting big on the Indian market. With Western economies still crawling out of a recession & domestic demand fragile, they have all planned a massive line up of new launches for 2010. From Nissan and Toyota to GM and Honda, automakers from across the globe are getting ready to unveil a slew of cheap compact cars for the first time Indian buyer, while producers in the high end, premium segment like Jaguar & Porsche are targeting the growing luxury market with SUVs and sports variants. Of course, Indian players like M&M, Maruti and Tata Motors too (after its 2009 launch of the iconic $2500 Tata Nano) are all set to make a splash this year with new models.

The broader consensus among experts seems to be that the auto industry is in for good times going forward, and India is well on its way to becoming a leading player on the world stage, both in terms of driving demand as well as leading innovation. The sector as a whole is poised to grow at 10-12% in 2010 and players like Nissan, Renault, Toyota, Honda, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz are among the several companies making huge investments in production capacities across the country. This could lead to India emerging as a center for automobile manufacturing and India’s apex automotive body SIAM says we will see 5 million jobs being created over the next 3 years alone.

But if global players are out there to service growing domestic demand, a latest report by KPMG says that Indian auto companies will be leading the global auto export market in the next 5 years. And that trend was visible in the quarterly numbers of players like Maruti whose results were buoyed by a strong export growth.

Of course, amidst all this euphoria there are immediate concerns like hardening interest rates, rising commodity prices and a roll back of the stimulus measures by the government, not to mention the tough emission norms which could hurt the sector in the short term.

But at least for now, the good news definitely outweighs the bad!

‘Kuch khaas hai hum sabhi mein…la la la…kya baat hai zindagi mein…’

Can’t seem to get that jingle out of my head as I write this post! One of Cadbury India’s many memorable ad campaigns that all of us in India grew up with in the 90s. Times were innocent then, the internet was still to overrun our lives & a bar of chocolate was a treat to be reserved for birthdays and weekends. In fact, the word chocolate was & still probably is so synonymous with Cadbury’s that I vividly remember occasions when my mother promised me 5 rupees to go and buy a ‘Cadbury’ from the local shop if I completed my homework on time. Chocolate meant Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. Period!

It’s ironic though that this much loved British company made its foray into the country in 1947, the same year India got her independence from the British. What a remarkable date to begin a love affair that’s still going strong 63 years on!

No wonder then that I too felt gutted after the Kraft takeover deal was announced. After all, for anyone growing up in India in the 90s post fifty years of socialism, there wasn’t much to identify with & the existent brands commanded a high degree of loyalty. New multinational companies were just making inroads into the country but it was difficult for them to take on the existing giants. Many got their strategies horribly wrong, misjudging the completely different consumption patterns of the Indian market and some had to make an exit pretty much within a year or two of launching their product.

Take for instance Kellogg’s Cornflakes – the hugely successful cereal brand failed miserably in their first attempt to launch in 1995. Indians, used to a piping hot homemade breakfast, were just not up to the idea of shelling out an extra buck to eat cold cereal in the morning! Kellogg’s sales were less than 20% of their expectations and it is only recently that the company has met with some success back home. Of course many others in the FMCG space like Nestle for instance have thrived in the burgeoning Indian marketplace, but many years on Cadbury’s still remains an undisputed leader, at least in the chocolate business, controlling two thirds of the Indian market.

Its revenues from chocolates and confectionery for 2008 were at Rs 1200 crore compared to less than Rs 700 crore for its rival Nestlé, and it has seen profits (PAT) grow by more than 40% in the last couple of years. A lot of this success probably has to do with the hugely innovative brand campaigns Cadbury’s has run for years, appealing to the average Indian through typically Indian concepts like celebrating moments of joy by indulging in your sweet tooth, or the happiness of sharing a bar of chocolate with the family and so on.

Kraft will now have a huge legacy to live up to as it enters India. And analysts are saying it is going to be a tough battle for the company as it tries to make inroads into one of the largest markets in the world. For one, competition is strong in the food space and then there is the big question of understanding and adapting to the idiosyncrasies of a complex market like India.

But on the other hand experts say it couldn’t have gotten bigger for Kraft as it gets ready for its Indian sojourn. For starters, Kraft doesn’t have a meaningful presence in the country and despite its best efforts, the most visible Kraft product is Tang, the flavored drink. The Cadbury’s deal will not only guarantee the company a strong distribution network for its own products, but also give it instant access to the hugely profitable chocolate and confectionary business in India.

For India as a whole, this deal probably heralds another era in our love for chocolates. Consumers will now have a much wider choice as Toblerone fights it out with Dairy Milk on the same rack. Meanwhile it’s also going to be a tough battle for Nestlé and other homegrown companies like Britannia and Amul as they compete with the world’s second largest food and beverage maker for the largest chunk of the Indian pie.

All in all, while consumers will only benefit from this deal, what’s still unclear is what Kraft will do with the branding. Will it keep the bar of chocolate that offers the goodness of one and a half glass of milk intact in all its purple glory, or will it be changed to something unrecognizable? Cadbury India claims the brand has enormous strength and will carry on the way it is.

For old time’s sake, let’s hope they are right!

“It has really been a dream come true for all of us.” Aranya Choudhury probably never imagined he would stand inside the most advanced high-energy physics research facility ever created.  The Large Hadron Collider became operational on 10th September 2008, and Choudhury, 20 years old, was one of 11 Indian undergraduate students selected to spend 8 to 13 weeks there as an intern, rubbing shoulders with some of the brightest minds of our time.

For the uninitiated, LHC is essentially a 27-kilometre-long tunnel concealed beneath Switzerland.  It’s the flagship project of CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) and is designed to smash the tiniest known particles into each other with the intention of, among other things, recreating the conditions present at what we call The Big Bang.  As a layman, perusing documents and articles explaining why it came into being, who brought it to fruition and what potential discoveries it may trigger visions of a sentient technology that could finally bring about the human apocalypse à la the Terminator or Matrix films.  “The Large Hadron Collider begins to learn at a geometric rate.  It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, December 7th.  In a panic, we try to pull the plug.”  Something like that.

As usual, the realities of cutting edge technology are a far cry from Hollywood.  For a start, it immediately broke and will lie dormant undergoing repairs until November this year, so we can put off stashing a survival kit under the bed until then at least.  Seriously, though, LHC is a rigorously controlled effort at putting our best knowledge to work for us in order to push forward our understanding of the universe we inhabit.  Physical theories that have until now been purely theoretical and untested can finally be observed, altered or disproven – in real time.

CERN being a European organisation, the bulk of the more than 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries involved are European. However, the group wants the best technology and knowledge to be given a chance to shine and provide expertise, so naturally India continues to play a key role.  For example, over 7000 precise magnetic jacks were required to ensure the tunnel remained a perfect circle, and they were all made in India, as was much of the other magnetic equipment needed.  That may be pure outsourcing, but then there are the Indian groups gaining experience through partnership with CERN with a view to setting up their own high-tech research facilities in India, such as SINP and VECC.

Ultimately, if the whole thing flops and we end up learning nothing new about our universe, at least kids like Choudhury will have had a chance to be present at the foremost physics facility of this generation, to meet the best minds of our time, and most importantly, to meet fellow aspiring scientists from all over the world.  Fostering that curiosity in the youth is something that is all too rare in a world saturated with negative and manipulative images. It’s heartening to see such a high-profile group do their part not just for future textbooks, but also for future leaders of the field.

A more complete breakdown of Indian involvement can be found here – be warned, if you’re a neophyte like me it may lead to feelings of horrible, ‘what have I done with my life’ inadequacy.

Mont Blanc, the Swiss accessories giant, recently launched a limited edition gold pen bearing the image of Mahatma Gandhi to coincide with the great man’s birthday anniversary.  At aroundUS$25,000, it’s hardly a mass market item, but the very idea of it has many people up in arms.  India’s own Gandhiji?  Hero of the masses, champion of equality, reduced to being bought by the wealthy as a status symbol or investment and exploited cynically by a foreign company for profit?  A Kerala advocate, Dijo Kappen, has openly stated his intent to pursue legal proceedings against Mont Blanc, and a public debate has begun.

It’s reasonable to say that the name Gandhi is amongst the top four or five most widely known in the world today.  His image is perhaps even more widely known, and the irony of such a symbol of dignity and non-exclusivity appearing on a precious gold item for the elite is not lost on most.  His mission of nonviolence has impacted and influenced people all over the world, and he has come to belong not only to India and Indians but global society as a whole, so the indignation is coming from all quarters.

The loudest voice of dissent has been Kappen, the Kerala advocate who is making it his own mission to ensure something like this never happens again.  In Kappen’s words, “Gandhiji is the Father of the Nation and is considered the epitome of simplicity. Making him a symbol of a Rs 14-lakh pen is nothing but an attempt to degrade everything that Gandhiji symbolised.”  At this point, one has to ask: what, exactly, would the Mahatma have said had he been alive to see this?

Well, here we are talking about a man who led millions in a revolt against violent external rule; to Kappen I would say that it seems improbable that he would have gotten hot and bothered if someone designed a nice pen with his face on it.  No doubt he would be disappointed, having himself expressly sought to prevent use of his image – “I have no copyright in his portraits but I am unable to give the consent you require” was his response to a manufacturer who wanted his visage to decorate their roof tiles.  However, I think it’s much more likely that he would have a problem with people actually caring to buy, own and covet such expensive items, but not given it much more than a passing thought.

My significant other also made an interesting point.  People do like nice things, and if you want to honour Gandhi and have the means, why should it be wrong to purchase something classy?  In Varkala, where I live, every store sells t-shirts with Gandhi’s famous portrait emblazoned on them.  Ultimately, people will buy this pen for the same reason others buy those shirts: they would be proud to own and display something that honours the great man, and they can afford to buy it.  It’s the same with Che Guevara, another icon that has been commodified, though his example illustrates the danger of going too far and losing that icon’s true meaning.

Sure, Mont Blanc will certainly have decided to produce this pen with the prospect of profits far greater in their minds than any idea of tribute to the man.  They probably started with the concept of whether the pen would be saleable and then searched for ways to justify making it.  However, in a world governed more and more by the bottom line, Mont Blanc are drawing attention to an important figure, raising money for his legacy and making a good few bucks on the side.  It’s a tribute that fits perfectly with the times.