Road To Sarjapur...Tale Of Lost Opportunities

In a country hungry for successes, we need to go well beyond counting our blessings
Road To Sarjapur...Tale Of Lost Opportunities
Vivek Bharati, Financial Express

I had long awaited this opportunity to drive through India’s “silicon valley” to visit the Wipro campus at Sarjapur, some 15 kilometers outside Bangalore. As the car moved on, my thoughts raced back two years when I traveled from the San Francisco airport to San Jose and Santa Clara with a stopover at the enchanting campus of Stanford University at Palo Alto. I remembered the impeccable expressways that make distance fly faster than time, the beautiful avenues of those small cities where civic order and cleanliness, huge glass-paneled buildings and elegant languor of shopping arcades and eateries all combine to form a marvelous cradle of creativity.

The real “silicon valley” and its clone in the outskirts of Bangalore have one thing in common. The imprint of the Indian mind, its work ethic and ability to create and compete with the best in the world is deep and lasting in both the destinations. The two are also home to the world’s best companies that use these locations to expand the frontiers of technology.

But the moment you take these common elements out, the contrast between the two places can shock you into a depression. The road to Sarjapur is a nightmare to say the least. You need to muster all your skills at the wheel to manoeuvre your way around crater-size potholes that get waterlogged within minutes of a downpour. With all kinds of traffic jostling for space on that slushy narrow tarmac, it’s a bone-jarring ride that can take you anything between 45 minutes to twice that time.

The dilapidation, squalor and disrepair that marks the physical infrastructure that surrounds shining office blocks and campuses built by some of the best known global brands in the technology business testifies to the awesome grit and determination shown by those who conduct business from this township. We have all heard of the digital divide. We are also aware of the dualism that separates the modern face of India from its underdeveloped hinterland.

It is time we also focused on the gaping disconnect between our wired plush offices housing some of the best talent available anywhere on this planet and the degradation and the civic disorder that marks our public places and supporting infrastructure just outside these temples of modern India. There is a huge and antagonistic difference between the two mindsets: the one inside the Wipro campus and the one charged with maintaining (or dismantling?) the roads, drains, pavements, parks, traffic, electricity cables and transformers etc. The outcome of this battle between the two mindsets is critical to how India can make a mark on the global stage and transform the lives of a third of its population that still struggles to forage two square meals a day.

It’s tempting to dismiss this as an exaggeration. After all, these infrastructural disabilities notwithstanding, haven’t companies such as Wipro and Infosys grown at a scorching pace to spread excellence around the globe, created jobs and incomes for millions of young creative Indians, and created brand equity for India? True. But in a country hungry for successes, we need to go well beyond counting our blessings and take stock of the enormous opportunities that have been lost just because we have not applied our mind to changing systems of governance and public management to support the capabilities and talent of our own people.

• The difference between the Indian and real silicon valley is depressing
• Change the mindset of those who manage our infrastructure
• Expose them to a different culture, ethos and management practice

If the mindset of those who manage infrastructure outside the Wipro campus had evolved at the same pace as inside it, this country’s earnings from IT would have been many times more than the present level. The same can be said for a number of other indstries such as engineering, textiles and apparel, shipping and logistics, food processing, tourism and hospitality et al where the managerial, entrepreneurial and product development capabilities of Indians can outperform the best in the world.

Yet they are unable to realise their full potential because of roads hat thwart movement rather than facilitate it, power that comes in fits and starts, ports that are clogged, industrial estates that discourage rather than encourage productive effort, and laws and related inspectors that consume as much time as creative endeavour. In the 1950s, India was ahead of most of its Far and East Asian neighbours and today we are behind in terms of most indicators. It would be no exaggeration to say that our economy today could have been at least twice its current size had we created the support systems for multiplying the productive effort of our people. The loss: at least $600 billion in the current year alone or trillions if you add it over the last three or four decades.

There is a moral to this story. The yawning gap between the organisational and management cultures that prevail in our best companies and in our public service providers needs to be bridged quick and fast. This is not just a policy issue. It is also a people and human resource management issue. The vicious circle of inward and incestuous thinking that dominates the mind of our public service providers needs to be broken with a determined and defined foray. Today, in their effort to remain competitive both at home and abroad, Indian companies are seeking to imbibe best practices and learning from wherever they can find them. For example, ICICI Bank is incorporating lessons from manufacturing and travel companies on how to reduce costs and increase customer loyalty.

Our public service providers need to be exposed to cultures, ethos and management practices of our companies that strive to become and remain globally competitive and the difference this makes to the prosperity and progress of our country and its people. The government should seek the expertise available in these companies to train and reorient the human resource in government organisations so that they understand the difference they can make to the present and future of this country.

The author is an advisor to Ficci. These are his personal views