Is India a Learning Society?

Every year, the faculty team of MATS Institute of Entrepreneurship & Management, (promoted by the Jain Group of Institutions, Bangalore) moves out of the campus for a day to attend what we call a "strategy summit". May 30, 2008, was the D day this year. Coincidentally, the top management of a leading microfinance NBFC was attending an Annual review meet at the same venue (The Fireflies Ashram, off Kanakapura Road, 20 kms from Bangalore). We invited the COO of that organisation to meet our faculty team. During the discussions that followed, we reviewed the efforts of various interest groups to vitalize rural India. One of my colleagues pointed out the "e-choupal" initiative of ITC (Indian Tobacco Company). The immediate response of the group was "hey..we have been discussing this success story for far too long. Why are others not learning from this innovation, why do we not see more such initiatives"? A few years ago, yet another success story used to do the rounds in all business meets - that of Sundaram Fasteners being the worldwide single vendor of radiator caps to General Motors. We would often wonder why other companies could not learn from Sundaram's experience and post their own success stories.

I recall discussions that I had with Mr. Ali Yakhlief from the University of Stockholm, during his visit to MATS, about how it was no coincidence that societies that institutionalized research, developed faster. The case in point is the USA and the European societies. They learn faster from experiments, observation or case studies. There is an ecosystem that reaches the learning to deserving recipients in industry - there is a constant search for new paradigms. This ecosystem comprises research scholars, management thinkers, publishers and authors. There are best sellers which quickly transmit knowledge. Best practices are quickly adopted. Added to this, IT companies like Oracle also chip in to capture best practices and pass them on in a packaged form.

Sadly, such an ecosystem does not exist in India. Even if it does, it does not deliver. Opportunities for learning either do not exist or as a Society, we do not grab opportunities to learn. We are unable to move rapidly up the value chain. Best practices do not spread fast enough. India can shine only if we transform into a learning society, which we are not, as of today.