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China Inspired !

Why China will succeed!

The tale of two couples describes the picture of success that the Indian middle class have been able to paint on the Chinese landscape. Lakshman and Hetal Hemnani who started life managing a small APTECH centre in Pune are now running a successful chain of GANGES Indian restaurants in the capital city of Beijing, ensuring a quality of cuisine and service that would put many fine restaurants in our own country to shame. And two IIM graduates Ashok Sethi and Renu Khurana, who left thriving careers in India to explore the land of Confucius six years ago, are now Chinese in their occupations and even their thinking ‘ Ashok running a thriving market research business and Renu consulting on education and process quality to multinationals as well as local firms.

What is common to this enterprising quartet and indeed to many more young Indian families who have chosen to make China their home in this decade is not their capability and desire to embrace Chinese language and culture in all its diversity but the respect they have imbued for the discipline and processes that characterize Chinese work ethics and way of life. During the last year when I have made over four trips to this exciting country, every experience has left me more convinced that if there is one country that can truly aspire to take on the mantle of global leadership from America, it is not India but China ‘ unless of course we all collectively decide to do something about it!

The two significant characteristics that have built this conviction in me is the Chinese obsession with scale and quality and their ability to learn quickly and not only replicate but surpass the standards set by their own teachers. Every highway in China is twice the size of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway which even today remains an isolated beacon of excellence in the state of Maharashtra and an enchanting audio visual in the small city of Suzhou demonstrates how this small outlying village of Shanghai has been systematically transformed into a successful pilot city that demonstrates Chinese outsourcing capability at its best. A Communist party Secretary and Mayor committed to growing the one billion dollar plus of outsourcing business manifold, the country’s first outsourcing college training young citizens on the finer aspects of domestic and global outsourcing and the availability of outstanding physical and social infrastructure that could attract the best in the world to move to the city. And if just the Yangtze River Delta and its high growth cities of Shanghai Pudong Suzhou Wuxi Hangzhou and Nanjing can achieve so much in so little time, with Beijing and Nanjing in the North and Shenzhen Guangzhou and Fushan in the South setting an equally scorching pace, imagine the pace that will be set if non-coastal regions like Chengdu in the Schezwan province and other large cities and provinces come in to join the party.

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 seventy million ambitious ambitious members of the Communist Party engaged in fierce competition with each other to demonstrate individual capability of their parks, cities and provinces to attract foreign investment, the second key aspect, that of quick learning can see the Chinese eco-system close the gaps exceedingly fast in the post recession years. When we started the APTECH Joint Venture with Beijing University a decade ago, few of us could have realised how successful the APTECH Beida Jadebird ( Beida is the commercial arm of the University ) would become in becoming the dominant computer trainer in the country. With the Wall Street Institute multiplying its reach of English language training and every significant educator from myriad Australian and British Universities to the numero uno Harvard Business School bringing the best of skills to the country, it is only a matter of time till the significant Chinese cities 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 the decade that I have been visiting and soaking in their culture is the acute sense of salesmanship which is rivaled only in some respects by the more entrepreneurial salesmen of Crawford Market, Chor Bazaar and Chandni Chowk. Strolling the streets of the bustling Yu Yu Aan street markets with a young Indian friend, we were amused when a street fake watch merchant not only convinced her to buy a fake Rolex for a five hundred rupee note 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!

Watch out for China, folks !

Ganesh