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A tale of two couples paints a perfect picture of success of the Indian
middle class on the Chinese landscape. Lakshman and Hetal Hemnani is one of the
couples, who started off life by managing a small Aptech center in Pune. Now the
couple is running a successful chain of Indian restaurantsGangesin the Chinese
capitalBeijing. The food chain provides quality Indian cuisines and services
that would put many fine restaurants in our own country to shame. While on the
other hand, two IIM graduatesAshok Sethi and Renu Khuranaleft their thriving
careers in India to explore the land of Confucius six years ago, and have now
become Chinese in their occupation as well as their thought process. Ashok runs
a thriving market research business, while Renu provides consultancy on
education and process quality to multinational and local firms.
What is common to this enterprising quartet, and indeed to many more young
Indian families who have chosen China as their home is the respect they have
imbued for Chinese work ethics and way of life. During the umpteen number of
visits to this exciting country in the last year, every time I was more
convinced that if there is one country that can take on the mantle of global
leadership from America, it is not India but China. Unless, of course, if we all
collectively decide to do something about it!
The two significant characteristics that have built my conviction is the
Chinese obsession with scale and quality, their ability to learn quickly and
surpass the standards set by their own teachers. An enchanting audio-visual in
the small city of Suzhou demonstrates the transformation of this small outlying
village of Shanghai into a successful pilot city, demonstrating Chinese
outsourcing capability at its best. A Communist party secretary and mayor
committed to growing $1 bn plus outsourcing business in the country, started the
first outsourcing college for training young Chinese citizens. The institute
will train the Chinese youth on the finer aspects of domestic and global
outsourcing that could attract the best in the world to the city. And if just
the Yangtze river delta and its high growth cities of Shanghai, Suzhou, and
Nanjing can achieve so much in so little time, then Beijing and Nanjing in the
north and Shenzhen Guangzhou and Fushan in the south will be setting an equally
scorching pace.
For a long time, we in India have seen the emergence of Dalian as an isolated
example of success through its focus on Japan and Korea. But with 70 mn
ambitious members in the Communist party engaged in fierce competition with each
other to attract foreign investment, Chinese ecosystem is fast closing the gaps
in the post recession years. A decade ago, few of us could have realized how
successful the Aptech Beida Jadebird would become the dominant computer trainer
in the country. With the widespread English language training, and educators
from myriad Australian and British Universities to the numero uno Harvard
Business School bringing the best of skills, China will soon discover the secret
sauce to develop the talent pool that has taken India to the top of the totem
pole in global IT and business services outsourcing.
Finally, one aspect about China that has not changed in this last decade is
the acute sense of salesmanship, Strolling in the streets of the bustling yu yu
aan markets with a young Indian friend, we were amused when a merchant not only
convinced her to buy a fake Rolex watch for Rs 500, but also offered to give her
the whole case of watches, if she would marry him and stay on in China. So much
for Hindi-Chini bhai bhai!
Ganesh Natarajan
The author is Vice Chairman & MD of Zensar Technologies. He can be reached
at maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
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