Historic Day For Indian Business - Tata acquires Jaguar, Land Rover from Ford

March 26, 2008 will forever be a historic day for India Inc., India, and the Indian Business.

Tata today acquired two of the most celebrated, royal and revered auto brands in the history of automobiles - Jaguar and Land Rover - for $2.3 billion from Ford Motor company.

Tata Sons and Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata, said, "We are very pleased at the prospect of Jaguar and Land Rover being a significant part of our automotive business. We have enormous respect for the two brands and will endeavour to preserve and build on their heritage and competitiveness, keeping their identities intact. We aim to support their growth, while holding true to our principles of allowing the management and employees to bring their experience and expertise to bear on the growth of the business."

Just hours after Tata issued a low-key announcement to confirm it had "entered into a definitive agreement with the Ford Motor Company for the purchase of Jaguar Land Rover, comprising brands, plants and Intellectual Property Rights", the top bosses of Unite, the UK's largest trades union, said the deal "is really good news for the UK automotive industry".

The UK India Business Council, (UKIBC) the lead organization supporting the promotion of bilateral trade, business and investment opportunities between the two countries, said the deal was an outstanding example of the UK's open economy. Its Chief Executive Sharon Bamford said the purchase was in line with "many significant (cross-border) deals in recent years (namely) Vodafone's acquisition of Hutch and Tata's previous acquisition of Tetley and more recently Corus, are leading examples of this".

UKIBC Chairman Lord Karan Bilimoria said, "Tata's purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover is only the latest example of the newfound confidence of Indian companies. Less than two months ago I sat in the new Tata Nano, and I witnessed history in the making. Indian companies are growing more confident in the global economy, and with this deal the country is on the move like never before."

Tata is poised to become a global brand with this acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover. India Inc. will now enter the world of autos besides the world of software and steel.

Related Articles:

• Red Hot Growth in Indian Business
• India Software Services Innovations
• The Growing Global Indian Innovation
• Quality Innovations at Ford
  

"Absolutely Red Hot" Growth in Indian Business: Ravi Venkatesan - Chairman Microsoft India - at TiEcon 2007

Ravi Venkatesan is the chairman of Microsoft India, and is responsible for Microsoft's marketing, operational and business development efforts in India. Venkatesan provides a single point of leadership for Microsoft in all of India. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is one of the top 20 innovators of The Innovation Index.

Venkatesan delivered a keynote presentation at the recently concluded TiEcon 2007 in Santa Clara, California and shared with the audience of entrepreneurs, CEOs and venture capitalists the opportunities for growth and innovation in India.

And why not? The current annual Indian GDP growth is 9% and is showing no signs of slowdown, Indian business has unprecedented access to capital, Indian innovation and entrepreneurship is booming, Indian business is riding a wave of "incredible confidence", over 100 Indian corporations have market capitalization of over $1 billion, Indian IT exports are poised to grow 30% to 35% yearly, major multi-nationals have made multi-billion dollar investments in India, Indian manufacturing, retail, real estate and exports are becoming bell-weathers - Venkatesan calls this current state and growth of economy and business in India as "absolutely red hot."

Venkatesan believes there is abundant opportunity in every market sector that is facing big societal problems with "For Profit" business models. India is a "nation to be built" and hence is directing huge amounts of capital, resources and manpower to meet the needs of this unprecedented growth that he compares to "19th century America".

Venkatesan outlined six major opportunities in industries that are showing the highest potential for growth and innovation in India since they have "huge societal problems":

1. Communications - led by mobile, broadband, VoIP, SMS and more by innovators such as Ambanis of Reliance and Bharati. The cell phone has become ubiquitous in India, and everyone from a businessman, taxi driver, to a vegetable "laari waala" is using cell phone for business and entertainment.

2. Energy - with growth in renewable energy, green energy, solar energy, nuclear power, and more led by innovators such as Tanti - who started with 2 windmills and has now grown his company into a major energy powerhouse.

3. Water - led by access to pure drinking water which is a huge healthcare problem in villages, especially when the cost of water is 11 rupees a bottle, and the cost of treatment from healthcare problems resulting from drinking adulterated water is growing.

4. Healthcare - with 100s of millions of people seeking better and longer health, a large segment of aging population, foreign residents seeking better healthcare solutions in India creating a new market of "medical tourism", led by corporations such as Apollo, Ranbaxy, Fortis and more

5. Agriculture - with new innovations in delivering fresh food and focus on end-to-end supply chain led by companies such as Reliance Fresh, and through access to micro-finance for Indian farmers and agriculture companies.

6. Education - with focus on English and IT, leadership and employability, skill gaps and K-12 - despite the high GDP growth, a large percentage of India is still illiterate and requires bold initiatives led by state and national government and private entrepreneurs. For instance, can education tutorials be delivered through cell phones as an online service, especially when cell phones are being used by the largest segment of the population.

Venkatesan quipped that the biggest problem Microsoft has is that a majority of the SMB and consumer market does not want to pay for software. He provided some examples on how Microsoft has used creativity, flexible service-based business model and customer focused solution approach to address some of the IT problems facing small business and pharmaceutical industry in Tirupur and Ahmadabad.

Finally, Venkatesan provided four key takeaways for entrepreneurs who want to seize the Indian opportunity:

1. Address huge societal problems with For-Profit business models and focus on your most significant challenge, and "inclusive growth."

2. Don't forget entrepreneurship 101 - obsess about your consumer or the customer, and do rigorous thinking.

3. "Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast" - Venkatesan quoted Mukesh Ambani's mantra of growth that every entrepreneur should follow.

4. Talent. Talent. Talent. Hire the best and the smartest people who have a strong sense of purpose and believe in the larger mission of the company.

Venkatesan's presentation style was extemporaneous and to the point, without any slides, straight from the gut. His experience with the Indian industry was without a doubt. His poise, panache, and no-nonsense conviction made for an audience of entrepreneur believers who couldn’t wait to hop on to the next plane to India in search of new opportunities.

Also check:
Innovation and Leadership lessons from Meg Whitman, eBay CEO and President, and top Innovator

Innovation Lessons from the Top Innovators and 13-year old CEO at TiEcon 2007

TiEcon 2007 was hosted by TiE – The Indus Entrepreneurs at the Santa Clara convention center.

And past articles on innovations and growth in India:

Made in India - Innovations in Software Operations at the Top Innovators

The Growing Global Indian Innovation

Made in India - Innovations in Software Operations at the Top Innovators

Amazon.com, Cisco, Dell, eBay, GE, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Target Corporation and Yahoo are 12 of the Top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index who have setup their software operations or development centers in India. Each innovator is addressing its growing needs for cutting-edge software for the global customer base by creating offshore Software Operations in India.

According to this report from Research and Markets as part of the announcement of addition of Directory of Multi-National Corporations (MNC) India Software Operations:
“India as a country has been able to attract a number of global players in software. Microsoft has built its largest development centre outside the U.S. in Hyderabad city of India, almost 20% of the development activities of SAP are done in India, the Bangalore development centre of Philips contributes in every product of the company that has software in it. Hewlett Packard is conducting all its high level research on futuristic technologies for emerging markets in India.”

The particular report from Research and Markets profiles 203 MNC companies, with software operations in India, or having at least one development center in India:

“ABB Labs - Adaptec India Pvt Ltd - ADC (India) Communications and Infotech Pvt. Ltd.- Adobe India - ADP Wilco (India) Private Limited - Amdocs Development Centre India Private Ltd - American Megatrends India (AMI) Pvt. Ltd.- Analog Devices India - ANZ Information Technology Pvt Ltd - AOL Bangalore Development Centre (BDC) - Ariba Technologies India Development Centre - ASAP Automation India Pvt. Ltd.- Autodesk India Center of Excellence (CoE) - BEA Systems India Pvt Ltd - Bell Labs Research Center - BMC Software India-offshore Development Centre (ODC) - Borland India Private Ltd - Broadcom India Pvt Ltd - Business Objects (BO) India - Cadence Design Systems - CADS India Software (P) Ltd.- Capgemini India - Cerner Healthcare Solutions Pvt. Ltd - Cisco Systems (India) Private Limited - Citrix R&D India Pvt Ltd - Cognizant Technology Solutions - Cognos India - Comodo Security Solutions - Conexant Systems India Pvt. Ltd.- CR2 Centre of Excellence - CXO Systems India Pvt Ltd - Cypress India Design Center - Dell India R&D Center - EFI India Pvt. Ltd.- eFunds International India Ltd.- EMC India Software Development and Support Centre - Emptoris Technologies India (ETI) - Emulex development centre Executive Summary - Ericsson India Private Limited - ESAYA Software (India) Pvt Ltd - Esquire Systems India 0ffshore Development Centre - Fair Isaac India Software Pvt. Ltd.- Fiserv Global Services Group - Fluent India Pvt Ltd. - Freescale Semiconductor India Pvt. Ltd.- GDA Technologies Ltd.- Gemplus India PVT Ltd - Genesys International Corporation Ltd.- Giesecke & Devrient India Pvt. Ltd - Google India R&D center (Google Online) - Hitachi Global Solutions Center (GSC) - Honeywell Technology Solutions Ltd (HTSL) - HP Labs - HSBC Software Development (India) Private Limited - Huawei Technologies India Pvt Ltd. (HTIPL) - Hughes Software Systems Ltd. (HSS) - Hyperion Solutions India Private Limited - i2 Technologies - IBM India Research Lab (IBM-IRL) - Informatica Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd - Intel Technology India Pvt. Ltd.- Intergraph India Limited - Interwoven Software Services India Pvt Ltd - Jean Martin - Keane India - Kanbay Software (India) Pvt. Ltd.- LG Soft India (LGSI) - Magma Design Automation India Pvt Ltd - McAfee India Centre - Mentor Graphics (India) Pvt. Ltd - Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC) - Motorola India Private limited.- Mysis India - National Instruments India - Nokia India Pvt. Ltd - Novell Software Development (I) Private Limited - NXP Semiconductors India - Oracle India Development Center - Parametric Technology Research & development (India) Ltd. - Philips Innovation Campus (PIC) - PMC-Sierra India Pvt. Ltd. - UGS India (Product Development Centre) - QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies (QCT) - Red Hat Software Services (India) Private - Robert Bosch India Limited - Samsung India - SAP Labs India - Sapient India - SAS Research and Development (India) - SCO India Pvt. Ltd - Sequence Design India Pvt Ltd - Sharp India - Siemens Information Systems (SISL) - Socrates Software India Pvt. Ltd.- Software AG (India) Pvt. Ltd. - STMicroelectronics Private Ltd - SumTotal Systems India Pvt. Ltd - Sun India Engineering Center (SIEC) - SunGard Offshore Services (India) - Sybase India Technology Development Center - Synopsys (India) EDA Software Pvt Ltd - Tensilica Technologies India Pvt. Ltd.- Texas Instruments India Pvt. Ltd - The DaimlerChrysler Research Centre India (DCRCI) - The John F. Welch Technology Centre (JFWTC) - TIBCO Competency Centre - Unisys Technology Development Centre - ViewSonic India Pvt Ltd. - Virtusa (India) Pvt Ltd - Xansa India - Xerox India Ltd. - Xilinx India Technology Services Pvt. Ltd. (India Development Centre) - Yahoo! Software Development India Pvt. Ltd - 3SG Software India Pvt Ltd”

The report from Research and Markets focuses primarily on Software operations. All told, the 200 plus MNCs hire over 100,000 software developers in India creating new innovations in software. IBM alone hires over 3,000 of these 100,000 software engineers.

On a separate note, IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced the opening of a brand new Autonomic Computing Technology Center in Bangalore, India last week.

“The new development center was created to address the overwhelming demand from India-based business partners and customers for technology and systems that are self-managing.

An extension of the India Software Laboratory, the new center is dedicated to advancing IBM's global Autonomic Computing initiative, which has worked for the past five years to reduce complexity by automating processes and building intelligence into IT systems. Much in the same way the autonomic nervous system regulates and protects the body, autonomic technologies are designed to manage and heal themselves.

…The center works closely with IBM's worldwide Software Development Laboratories, particularly those in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA and Toronto, Canada to provide worldwide autonomic solutions. The Autonomic Computing Technology Center in India will also work closely with the IBM India Research Laboratory, with sites in New Delhi and Bangalore, which conducts advanced autonomic research blending pure and applied research, exploring areas such as Blue Gene, speech recognition and services innovations…

The new center builds on already strong autonomic computing momentum in India. In September 2006, a dozen India-based solution providers joined IBM's Autonomic Computing Business Partner initiative and are working to incorporate IBM's self-managing autonomic technology into their software and solutions. The first wave of Indian solution providers to adopt IBM's autonomic technology has signaled a new era of computing in India, whereby technology firms are turning to IBM to help develop systems with built-in intelligence to reduce IT complexity for customers…

…The Autonomic Computing Technology Center is part of IBM's globally integrated approach to innovation -- a network of 63 major software development and research labs worldwide that develop, test and support a wide range of emerging and established technologies that span software and services.

IBM India Software Lab employs 3,200 people across five cities, making India one of the largest software development hubs for IBM worldwide. The India lab develops software products across all five brands of IBM Software Group's portfolio... ”

In The Growing Global Indian Innovation, I provided a snapshot of the growth of Indian Innovation and Innovators within India and globally. According to John Hagel, “there’s no shortage of opportunities at both the product and process level to drive the growth of Indian IT services companies.”

The big three in Indian IT services, Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro, already employ about 220,000 employees focused on software services and delivery worldwide. It will be a matter of time before India Software Inc. reaches 1 million in software focused employees worldwide.

Bottomline:

I had recently created a Google AdWords account to market the services of Creativity and Innovation blog, and to experience firsthand the monetization of online search marketing. I realized that the Google team in India was servicing my customer support issues and answers to my questions on the AdWords solution. The overall experience was seamless except for a slight delay on response time (although this could have been owing to my inquiry itself). This tells me that the top Innovators are able to integrate their India software operations not only for key development, but also for service and delivery. Can India, China, Brazil or Russia provide a complete software solution – a software factory – for the entire lifecycle of software in the future? This would include not only the conceptualization and product management of software, but also continuous software development, software testing, software delivery, software management, software service and support, and creation of new software based on customer feedback. Perhaps some of the Software operation centers in India are already doing this and leaping forward into the future. Made in India: Innovations in Software Operations is fast becoming a reality today, and is poised to become commonplace tomorrow. Remember the classic “Intel inside” campaign from Intel for the processors – in the very near future, we may perhaps anecdotally witness “India inside” for software.

About The Innovation Index

The Innovation Index introduced in December 2006 is a weighted stock price index of the top 20 Innovators in North America.

The Innovation Index has returned 119% over the last five years. This assumes an investment in each stock of The Innovation Index (buying each stock). An average of $100 invested in The Innovation Index on December 31, 2001 returned $219 as of December 29, 2006. By comparison, $100 invested in each of S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index returned $124. The Innovation Index beats the S & P 500, NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index by 77% over the last five years.

The Normalized Innovation Index has returned an impressive 174% over the last five years. This assumes equal investment in each stock of The Innovation Index.

Alphabetical list of the top 20 Innovators of The Innovation Index and their stock ticker symbols:

3M Company - (NYSE: MMM)
Amazon.com, Inc. - (NASDAQ: AMZN)
America Movil - (NYSE: AMX)
Apple Inc. - (NASDAQ: AAPL)
Cisco Systems, Inc. - (NASDAQ: CSCO)
Dell Inc. - (NASDAQ: DELL)
eBay Inc. - (NASDAQ: EBAY)
General Electric Co. - (NYSE: GE)
Google Inc. - (NASDAQ: GOOG)
Hewlett-Packard Co. - (NYSE: HPQ)
Intel Corporation - (NYSE: INTC)
International Business Machines Corp. - (NYSE: IBM)
Microsoft Corporation - (NASDAQ: MSFT)
Research In Motion Limited - (NASDAQ: RIMM)
Southwest Airlines Co. - (NYSE: LUV)
Starbucks Corporation - (NASDAQ: SBUX)
Target Corp. - (NYSE: TGT)
The Proctor & Gamble Company - (NYSE: PG)
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. - (NYSE: WMT)
Yahoo! Inc. - (NASDAQ: YHOO)

The Innovation Index will analyze the positions and standings of the top 20 Innovators at the end of each year. For 2007, there will be no further changes in The Innovation Index.

Disclaimer: I invest in the stocks comprising The Innovation Index.

The Growing Global Indian Innovation

Indian Americans are the top entrepreneurs among immigrant groups in the United States, and in setting up the largest number of engineering and technology companies over the past decade. Indian Americans account for 26 per cent of tech firms founded by immigrants as a whole. Eglis Milbergs, president of the Center for Accelerating Innovation, in this article touts the Duke University study wherein the biggest concentration of Indian entrepreneurs was found in California, Texas and New Jersey.

Ajay Singh Niranjan of The Great Human Capital believes that a brave new world beckons Indian Innovators and Entrepreneurs, and lots of opportunities exist for innovation and entrepreneurship to thrive in India, especially in areas such as technology, health care, education, rural marketing and social services.

In this article, Wipro's Innovation process is outlined in an interview with K.S. Viswanathan, chief-executive of sales at Wipro India.

Viswanathan states that "We (Wipro) have three types of innovation: technology innovation, process innovation and delivery innovation....At the apex end, we have an IT management council, where normally all decisions about breakthrough innovations or quantum innovations are taken....To assist the IT management council, we have an IT innovation council, where we go through four gates before an IT project gets done."

At Wipro, 5% of the total revenue of $3 billion comes from innovation projects according to Viswanathan. And to top it off, Azim Premji, CEO, gets involved in key innovative projects. Viswanathan says "Azim Premji has said that so many dollars of revenue per year are earmarked for innovative projects, largely for quantum innovations and those that lead to process innovations."

Arun Kottolli, a Management Consultant who maintains his own blog provides key advantages towards investing in India. Kottolli affirms that "India has now regained its innovative spirit. As a result, creativity can be seen in all walks of life in India. Indian companies have discovered the benefits of innovation and creativity.....Creativity in India can be seen in diversity of its languages, classical arts and music, literature, folk arts, construction etc."

One key metric: IBM, GE, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel and sixty other top innovating companies have already setup their R&D centers in India.

Kottolli believes that Indians tend to opt for cost effective innovation.

Kottolli is a prolific blogger, and in another article, talks about the Indian Style of Innovation and Intellectual Property Creation.

Innovation at Infosys is grounded in the intellectual capital and the processes to rigorously train the employees:

-->The company’ key competitive advantage has been the intellectual capital of its employees. - Infosys Annual report 2006

-->In India Infosys took that idea (from GE) to heart and created the world’s largest employee training facility.

In a separate article, Kottolli writes that the "Indian automobile industry has demonstrated resounding success of Indian innovation. Bajaj Auto created DTSI technology and designed Pulsar bike, Maini Group’s Reva, Mahindra’s Scorpio, Tata Motors created Sumo, Safari, Indica, 209, 407, and a slew of trucks."

John Hagel recently visited India, and wrote an article on the Innovation and Talent in the Indian IT Industry.

"As JSB and I have written, there is an opportunity to pursue “innovation blowback” strategies, using the Indian market as a catalyst for breakthrough innovation in products and services that can then be used to support global attacker strategies designed to challenge incumbents in the more developed Western economies.

The Indian IT services industry could fuel enormous growth for the Indian economy by more aggressively supporting these innovation blowback strategies.

Ultimately, the opportunity would be to become leaders in the formation and orchestration of creation networks. This would require mastering open innovation management techniques to attract and mobilize talent, focus the innovation initiatives across multiple participants and accelerate commercialization and learning from these initiatives.

There’s no shortage of opportunities at both the product and process level to drive the growth of Indian IT services companies."

Gautam Ghosh, a key blogger on Management Consulting, provides a reason on why Indian IT companies have not fully embraced product innovation: "Because software exports are not taxed and services within the country are, the incentive for developing IT products and services for Indian firms is low for the Indian IT service providers."

Bottomline:

When I visited India in 2006, I was "wowed" by the growth of local innovation on all industry fronts: pharma, healthcare, autos, equipment, manufacturing, financials, retail, education, IT and more – not just the BPO and KPO industries. The solid growth in Indian economy is fueling entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity from Indians in every industry. This growth is even attracting MNCs to establish their R&D, manufacturing and entrepreneurship centers in India. My favorite story is that of a Taxi Driver in India who drives an indigenous Tata Indica and conducts all the routes and business logistics by simply using SMS and click-to-talk on mobile phone. I was amazed as to how efficiently the Taxi business of over 100 taxis effectively ran using the mobile phone as a communications, logistics and business device. The Taxi Driver uses click-to-talk to signal to the Taxi dispatch service that his current route is coming to a close; the Taxi dispatch service locates the nearest new customer request to the current physical location on where the Taxi driver is; the Taxi dispatch service leverages GPS and Location software; the Taxi Driver gets an SMS from the Taxi dispatch service prompting him on where to go next with a link that provides a map if needed; the Taxi Driver goes to that location and finds the passenger; now, he simply uses Click-to-talk to signal that he has picked up the passenger and he is on the next route. Wow!

Living in Bay Area, one always has a strong awareness of the top Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and even in the U.S. Now, we are seeing the growth of entrepreneurship and innovation from Indians in India and all over the world.

I am planning to create a report on the top 10 Indian Innovators from around the world. The names of Azim Premji, N R Narayana Murthy, Lakshmi Nivas Mittal, Anil and Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Kushal Pal Singh, Sunil Mittal, Ramesh Chandra, Kumar Birla and Gautam Adani immediately come to mind. However there are many more. Vyomesh Joshi at Hewlett Packard who manages HP’s multi-billion dollar imaging business must be considered in this list. The criteria at a minimum should be the innovators creating lasting companies or business units of at least $1 billion in annual revenue, real disruption in the marketplace, establishing a global brand and currently in active role (or within the last year). I would call upon the many aforementioned writers to co-create and get inputs on this report on the top 10 Indian Innovators.