Here is a look at famous Indian CEOs at the helm of major American companies.
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Inc
Parag Agrawal, Twitter
Satya Nadella, Microsoft
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe Inc
Arvind Krishna, IBM
Raj Subramaniam, FedEx
Leena Nair, Chanel
CS Venkatakrishnan, Barclays
Sonia Syngal, Gap
Laxman Narasimhan, Starbucks
George Kurian, NetApp
Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto Networks
Jayshree Ullal – Arista Networks
Ajaypal Singh Banga – Executive Chairman, Mastercard
Sanjay Mehrotra – Micron TechnologLaxman Narasimha
Laxman Narasimhan - Reckitt Benckiser
Punit Renjen - Deloitte
Anjali Sud - Vimeo
Vivek Sankaran - Albertsons Companies
Niraj S. Shah - Wayfair
Ivan Manuel Menezes - Diageo
Vasant Kalathur Narasimhan - Novartis
Sharmishtha Shar Dubey - Match Group
Anshuman Jain - Deutsche Bank, Cantor Fitzgerald
Rajeev Suri - Nokia, Inmarsat
Dinesh C. Paliwal - Harman International
Rakesh Kapoor - Reckitt Benckiser
Francisco D’Souza - Cognizant
Sanjay Kumar Jha - Motorola and GlobalFoundries
Indra Krishnamurthy - PepsiCo
The above is just a token of the thousands of Indian super talents heading billion dollar companies. Singapore would not be able to afford them nor have billion dollar companies worthy to hire them.
If only Indian companies could afford to hire them, many Indian companies would be in the Fortune 500 list. With their super talents they could easily turn many Indian companies into top companies in the world. The world's gain is India's lost. Maybe if Singapore is willing to hire them, they may turn some of Singapore's companies to join the Fortune 500 list too.
What do you think? These are the world's top employees to those companies that could afford to pay them.
PS. Ooops, Twitter just changed its CEO to Elon Musk.
NTUC neh ?
ReplyDeleteOnly in no talents USA and Red Dot. The USA relied solely on foreigners even in Science and Technology. Chinese Scientist are leaving USA like running away from the plague. Why does Biden need to force Chip talents to return to USA by threatening to cancel their citizenship? That is true desperation.
ReplyDeleteHow many of Anehs are in top companies in China, Japan or South Korea? That will be interesting to note.
The only place that is safe is CEC where they still unable to penetrate. The rest would just be a matter of time. This is like the countryside surrounding the cities. How long would the cities last when the countryside is all taken over?
ReplyDeleteUS-led diversification push tests India’s potential as a China supply chain alternative
ReplyDeleteRudd’s words highlight a growing consensus among policymakers and analysts that India is emerging as an alternative production base to China.
“What we are seeing geopolitically is effectively a new cold war,” said Sadanand Dhume, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Against this backdrop, India is hoping to benefit economically from Western concerns about growing Chinese hegemony.”
While China’s growth outlook has been slashed to 4.4 per cent next year by the International Monetary Fund, investment bank Morgan Stanley has projected India’s economy to expand at 6.1 per cent on its way to becoming the world’s third largest by 2027.
India is also part of the Quad, an alliance that includes the United States, Australia and Japan, which is “the most potent symbol” of its growing union with the West, said Dhume.
India has seen a surge in foreign direct investment in recent years, receiving its highest ever inflows over 2020-21 at US$81.97 billion. Last year’s investment figure was more than double the $39.9 billion recorded in 2017.
While growing distrust of China explains part of it, government reforms have also made the country more appealing to multinationals.
“The government has undertaken labour market and tax reforms, embraced digital technologies, and made improvements to soft and physical infrastructure,” said Eswar Prasad, Tolani senior professor of trade policy at Cornell University.
Morgan Stanley predicts manufacturing as a portion of India’s gross domestic product could increase from 15.6 per cent today to 21 per cent in 2031, doubling the export market share of the world’s fifth largest economy.
“India is gaining power in the world order, and in our opinion these idiosyncratic changes imply a once-in-a-generation shift and an opportunity for investors and companies,” Ridham Desai, Morgan Stanley’s chief equity strategist for India, said earlier this month.
Multinational companies are taking note. Apple supplier Foxconn is increasing capacity at an existing factory in Chennai as coronavirus disruptions threaten production in China.
Another of Apple’s Taiwanese contract manufacturers, Pegatron, has also begun assembling the latest iPhone 14 model in India.
Still, about 70 per cent of components for manufacturing are sourced from China, so Apple’s dependence on the world’s No 2 economy is unlikely to change any time soon, said Ivan Lam, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research.
“Apple’s shipments to India are increasing steadily and local demand for Apple products is increasing,” he said. “As personal income rises, there is a potential for India to be the biggest market for consumer electronics.”
Tech giants Google and Samsung are also planning to shift some manufacturing capacity to India, partly to take advantage of the government’s production linked incentive scheme that subsidises the sale of commodities in multiple competitive sectors.
ReplyDelete“The hope among Indian policymakers is that companies are going to diversify to reduce their risk because the geopolitical situation is so volatile,” said Dhume.
“So part of your risk management strategy would be to not put all your eggs in China’s manufacturing basket.”
In September, Indian mining conglomerate Vedanta Resources and Foxconn announced the establishment of India’s first semiconductor plant in the state of Gujarat.
Last year, First Solar announced it would set up a vertically integrated solar module manufacturing facility in the state of Tamil Nadu.
China accounts for 80 per cent of global solar panel production. It is also the fourth largest manufacturer of semiconductors, with a global share of 15 per cent in 2020, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
“The balance right now is still strongly tilted towards China and other countries are trying to get a slice of the pie. No one thinks the whole pie is going away from China,” said Dhume.
“India is hoping to be seen as part of a more reliable supply chain, a supply chain that is based in the democratic world.”
However, a raft of challenges stand in the way of India living up to its promise.
“The reform agenda is hardly complete yet,” said Prasad, pointing to the much needed clean-up of the banking sector and further enhancements to public governance and infrastructure.
In the World Bank’s 2018 logistics performance index, India ranked 44 out of 160 countries, below regional heavyweights such as Vietnam, South Korea and Malaysia.
“India cannot count on a clear playing field,” said Prasad, adding competitors such as Vietnam, Mexico and Chile are also “ready to snap up any attempts by US and other Western firms to diversify their production bases away from China”.
Dhume said there remains an “enormous amount” of red tape.
“There is no shortage of labour but there is a relative shortage of skilled labour and all this takes place against the backdrop of India effectively building higher walls than before,” he said.
India’s protectionist tendencies are also an oft-cited concern. Despite entering into a slew of bilateral agreements with countries such as Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Britain, the government is wary of entering into multilateral trade pacts.
In 2019, it pulled out of the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade negotiations at the last minute, citing concerns about competition to domestic manufacturers. It also opted to sit out of the trade pillar of the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework more recently.
In recent months, New Delhi has banned critical exports of wheat and broken rice and raised custom duties on some of its strongest export commodities such steel and iron ore, leading to complaints from the sector.
“India is trying to make itself attractive to get a larger slice of the pie in an environment that is geopolitically favourable but it’s also doing it with a set of trade policies that cut in the other direction,” said Dhume.
India as the world's factory: China may be in denial
ReplyDeleteApple’s recent decision to shift manufacturing of its flagship smartphone product, the iPhone, to India has sparked a fresh wave of speculation on India emerging as the world’s factory. While analysts like JP Morgan estimate that India could garner a share of between 5 per cent and 25 per cent of iPhone manufacturing, certain close observers of hi-tech manufacturing in China estimate a 150 per cent growth year-on-year on Apple’s manufacturing in India, by Apple’s lead contract manufacturer Foxconn. The smartphone manufacturing boom in India goes well beyond the iPhone, with Samsung and other players expanding their India production capacity.
Curiously enough, the shift to India has triggered a debate in China on which country is best placed to be an alternative manufacturing and supply chain destination. This topic was the subject of a recent essay by Xu Qiyuan, a Chinese researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In an English version of the original essay in Chinese, titled “Vietnam, India, and Mexico, who is challenging China's status as the world’s factory?” published by the Beijing Channel newsletter, one gets a rare insight into the Chinese perception of India as a potential competitor. In the essay, Xu writes on the transformation India has seen in recent years registering 8 per cent GDP growth in 2021 while recognising the efforts put in by the Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi towards creating “a large unified market” through the GST regime. Duly recognising India’s talent pool in science and technology, Xu also notes that “India’s innovation and technology capabilities should not be underestimated”. Of particular interest to Xu is India’s IT prowess, presence of nine Fortune 500 firms in India and India’s self-sufficiency with low dependence on China.
However, it is Xu’s comments on India’s socio-cultural environment that are interesting for they lead to the conclusion that India is unlikely to be a viable alternative to China. Specifically Xu attributes “India’s transcendental religious beliefs” for what is termed as a “low desire of the people for economic development”. Further, Xu, while duly noting Prime Minister Modi’s clarion call for an “Aatmanirbhar Bharat”, draws the hasty conclusion that it is primarily directed towards domestic consumption, while going on to reiterate that “religion and culture” stand in the way of tough economic reforms in India. This repeated emphasis by Xu on “religion and culture” and “transcendental religious beliefs” is helpfully put into perspective when Xu makes a questionable assertion on the contribution of “Confucianism” to the Vietnamese society’s desire for development as a factor in its emergence as a manufacturing base.
It is interesting that the myths around the influence of Confucianism on Southeast Asia come not from Chinese scholars but from futurologist Hermann Kahn, who had labelled the Southeast Asian economies as “neo-Confucian”. Writing in a 2009 paper titled “The Confucius connection: From cultural roots to economic growth”, Geert Hofstede and Michael Harris Bond have further expanded on this theory of Kahn on the influence of religious and cultural programming on economic development to make claims on the role of Confucianism in Southeast Asia, which seems to have wrongly coloured the perceptions of contemporary analysts in China with regard to India. The 2009 paper, while focusing on religious factors behind economic growth, also highlights other factors such as open markets and favourable political conditions. It is also noteworthy that the 2009 paper was ambiguous on the extent to which Confucianism had contributed to economic development within the People’s Republic of China, on account of lack of data, while recognising that Southeast Asian culture is influenced by more than a single religious or cultural thought giving the examples of Hinduism and Buddhism among others.
ReplyDeleteWhile Chinese analysts such as Xu may be overstating the role of Confucian thought in economic development, it is their shallow and stereotypical understanding of India that needs further examination. It is this stereotypical image of India that manifested itself in the New York Times cartoon some years back on India joining the elite space club and is what is seen in the manner in which India is portrayed by Hollywood and others, conjuring images of snake charmers and godmen.
It would seem that most of these analysts have been overly focused on “moksha” to draw false conclusions of a “transcendental religious belief system”, while missing out on the role “dharma” and “artha” play in the pursuit of uplift of society.
From aviation to hi-tech manufacturing, as India opens up to the world of manufacturing and seeks to develop an alternative ecosystem for global supply chains, it is no surprise that Chinese analysts are looking to stretch the limits of logic to seek comfort in China's manufacturing prowess. India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has its task cut out in improving ease of doing business and boosting competitiveness to attract more global manufacturing. China, on the other hand, may have to come out of the twin bubbles of zero-Covid and Confucianism to come to terms with the low trust deficit globally that is seeing it not only being ejected from Canadian mines but also witnessing a flight of entrepreneurs from its mainland.
Diversification is a text book idea, just like economic growth. Growth must be good. Diversification must be good. The catch, is there a better and safer place to divest? Do not divest and throw good money into a bottomless pit.
ReplyDeleteThe Germans have a lot of investments in China. If diversification is the right solution, the Germans would be moving to USA and even India. This is the simple way of look at diversification.
What Germany is doing, is to put more and more money into China. Why, are the Germans stupid, do not know what is diversification? Even the Japs and South Koreans and many European countries are pouring more money into China.
Why not India or even Vietnam or Asean?
The Germans, Japs and S Koreans are not stupid. If they claim that they are stupid, no one would dare to claim to be smarter than them.
Whatever the reasons, ease of component supply chains and accessibility, as in the movement of goods to and from ports, and therefore timeliness of delivery are also important factors. Therefore infrastructures like high speed rails and well equiped port facilities are necessary.
ReplyDeleteWhy are the Germans, experienced investors themselves, mostly still moving to China. All because of the above reasons.
The Japs probably have found out long ago about their experience in dealing with the Indians. Even with agreements in hand, Indians are fond of adding in this and that to make it complicating.
ReplyDeleteJust take the Japanese involvement in railway projects in India, which they won against China. Problems keep popping up during construction, with the Indian Government demanding the Japs have to use their own Indian manufactured steel, which the Japs found not up to their standard. Wonder whether that problem has been resolved. China found out and were glad they did not win the bid and called it a blessing in disguise.
In this day and age, why are the Germans still investing in China? There is the USA beckoning, India as well. Cost of production in the USA is expensive and India is cheaper than China. Why not move to India?
ReplyDeleteChina's is even linked to Europe by rail now, with China's products now moving by rail using the BRI to Europe. India did not join the BRI. That is another impediment in India's way.
ReplyDelete<a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/business/2022/11/22/german-industry-wants-more-support-to-diversify-beyond-china'>German industry wants more support to diversify beyond China</a>
ReplyDeleteBerlin: One of Germany’s main industry lobby groups called on Monday for more support for industry to diversify trade beyond China, as the government prepares new policies aimed at reducing the economy’s dependence on Beijing.
Businesses faced an administrative burden from planned measures such as stress tests and greater scrutiny on investments in China, outlined in a draft document seen by Reuters, the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) said.
“Everything we have heard so far about the German government’s China strategy is extremely defensive,” said Volker Treier, head of foreign trade at DIHK.
“There is a lack of an encouragement strategy for building out sustainable economic relations, particularly in the wider Asia-Pacific realm, to avoid one-sided dependencies.”
Asked about the draft document, the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing told Reuters it hoped Germany would develop its relations in an “objective and rational manner”, adopting a policy benefiting the people of both nations.
Russia’s war in Ukraine, which German officials say revealed the economy to be too dependent on Russian energy, has spurred a re-examination of ties with Beijing, which are close among German businesses, especially in manufacturing.
Just four German companies – carmakers Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen and the chemicals giant BASF – accounted for a third of all European investment in China in 2018-2021, according to a study by research company Rhodium Group.
The foreign ministry document, which still has to be agreed by other ministries, said key industries including autos and chemicals must avoid the risk to companies and the country of investing too heavily in China.
A spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz declined to comment on the specific policies in the document but said the company sees it “as our task to work on greater diversification of our supply chains”.
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“We need an active and resilient industrial policy and strategy in Europe with regards to raw materials, batteries or semiconductors.”
A BMW spokesperson also declined to comment on the document’s details but said the group was as heavily invested in Europe and the Americas as in China, and would “continue to pursue the goal of opening up new sales markets in the future”.
Volkswagen and BASF declined to comment.
Diversified group Merck KGaA, whose investments in the region include a production site for lab equipment in Wuxi near the commercial hub of Shanghai, said facilities in China would mainly serve customers in the country.
“We need constructive dialogue with the goal to enhance multi-nationalism in the face of international bloc building,” it said, when asked to comment on Germany’s plans.
<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-seeks-less-china-reliance-after-russia-mistake/a-63848899>Germany seeks less China reliance after Russia 'mistake'</a>
ReplyDeleteGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday assured that trade diversification was underway and referred to Berlin's decades-long dependence on Russian energy supplies as a "mistake" that would not be repeated.
His remarks at an economic forum hosted by the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper comes amid concerns reported by German industries over Berlin's approach toward Germany's biggest trading partner, China.
"With Russia we have seen what it means to become dependent on a strategic resource such as gas," Scholz said.
"The mistake of dependence as with Russia will not happen again," he said.
Germany has reduced its reliance on Russian energy supplies since the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Cutting reliance on China
Separately, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Tuesday that Berlin would limit investment guarantees for companies doing business with China as "a strong incentive for diversification" while Germany reevaluates its economic relationship.
Habeck said during a trip to Paris that a quota would be implemented "so that not all German guarantees are aimed at one country, that is to say, China."
"There will be an upper limit for investments in a particular country," with a figure of €3 billion ($3.1 billion) being discussed, Habeck said.
Habeck told DW earlier this month that Germany needed to diversify its business interests in Asia to reduce dependency on China, noting that Russia's war on Ukraine proved the need for such a move.
A leaked German government draft on China strategy has called for more political support support in diversifying trade and securing key raw materials.
According to reports of the leaked draft, the Foreign Ministry calls for stronger ties to other economies and more controls on German trade with China, including so-called stress tests on material dependency.
Reuters news agency quoted a business representative as saying that the tone of the document risked hurting German industries' relationship with Beijing.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the economic event Tuesday that Germany cannot "decouple from China, nor can we completely do without the Chinese market."
On Tuesday, China's Foreign Ministry warned Germany in a statement that erecting protectionist barriers could destabilize supply chains, adding that "politicizing normal economic trade... is contrary to the principles of market economy."
Let them say what they want to say, as it is all in theory and gives them a good feeling. The USA tells Europe it must move away from Russian energy, but are they helping Europe or pushing them underwater? Instead of helping Europe for their sacrifices by towing their line, and playing into their agenda, the USA is making hay while the sun shines, while Europe is suffering the consequences. And it is not just this winter. Next year will be even worse, when Russian energy is completely cut off.
ReplyDeleteNtuc neh would have the abilities to make their insurance, health care, supermarkets food courts wings into billions dollars entities. A master stroke is by listing all of them in leading stock exchanges.
ReplyDeleteTalking about NTUC, and NTUC CEO is in the news . . . [ Nov 27 ]
ReplyDeleteIt will be challenging for supermarket chain FairPrice to keep prices consistently low, as Singapore and the rest of the world grapple with high levels of inflation, said group chief executive of FairPrice Group Vipul Chawla.
Mr Vipul joined FairPrice in April. Before that, Mr Vipul was president of Pizza Hut International, a brand under American fast-food company Yum! Brands. He previously worked at consumer goods company Unilever, where he held a number of roles.
FairPrice Group is a social enterprise under the NTUC Enterprise Co-operative, which includes other organisations such as NTUC First Campus, Income, and NTUC LearningHub.
The FairPrice Group comprises the following four entities:
1. FairPrice, a supermarket chain. There are over 370 outlets in various formats islandwide.
2. NTUC FoodFare
3. Kopitiam
4. NTUC Link
Honestly, I have been doing my groceries at Fairprice for decades, but not anymore. Because the prices are generally not cheaper than elsewhere. Forget about the hullabaloo about the discount on some weekdays. It is all hidden under the more expensive prices they charged shoppers. Moreover, almost every supermarket chain offer discounts to the elderly, some even more. So, why shop at Fairprice?
ReplyDeleteLately, it seems that the recent COVID lockdown had a great effect on Fairprice after customers learn how much cheaper they can get things on the internet. There were hardly any crowds left to support their business. When Indians run the co-operative, nothing is going to be cheap.
American Boss: I have this drawn square.. make it round for me.
ReplyDeleteIndian CEO: sure boss.. just cut corners