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.
1 comment:
The article about the eco-system is very interesting and perheps will make us think to take stock of situation in recent times. It is very much true that such an ecosystem does not exist here. The reasons (excuses?) are perheps plenty. The deprivation index speaks volumes of reasons for lagging so far behind. Is it because of lack of talent pool or because of funds? The answer could be both. It is not that India is not producing talent. In fact, we are one of largest suppliers to the global think tank in recent times. But unfortunately, best of the lot move abroad thanks to the mindset of colonial periods which still exists. Fortunately time is changing and so is the mindset, which is evident from reverse migration of talent pool reported by the media of late. But the numbers are not in our favour as yet. Hope, shortly things will improve for better.
Now let us think of funds. Is it (a)lack of funds (b)lack of willingness to spend or is it (c)large scale leakages in the research grant? The answer lies in the first two. As an economy we are too small(?) if one takes into account 1.2 billion plus population. We are practically left with very little or we can afford very small amount for perusal of original research. Very substantial part of our funds are spent in basic education to make the foundations. That leaves us with very little as I mentioned earlier. Now compare our research spending with that of developed nations especially US and UK. We stand nowhere compared to them.
Now let us consider willingness to spend on original research. Thanks to our democracy and coalition politics, each is trying to lobby for minor causes at the expense of larger national (original research?) interest. The result is whatever little funds we are left with, much of our energy is being spent on lesser important activities. Let us consider the case of setting up of new IITs as announced by the government recently. Now, for setting up of new campuses one requires land, building and other infrastructure for which large scale funds are required. But what about the faculty? Where are they going to get them? As it is, the existing IITs find it tough to fill in all the alloted faculty positions. On the top of that they are expected to help new IITs. No doubt we will be able to train more students but at what expense? It is at the expense of time-share of the existing talented and interested faculty who could have otherwise devoted their time for the perusal of original research. If the same amount of money is being spent on the existing facilities I am sure we can come out with better research output.
Now let us consider about leakages. I do not think there is much leakages in the research grant. For original research, state patronage is a must. Because, private funding for original reseach is ruled out as input-output analysis will nver favour the proposition viable. Now if we compare the input-output ratio of Indian researchers with that of west, I am sure we are doing quite well. But if one compares absolute numbers, then we stand nowhere. Perheps as and when our economy grows, we can afford more resources for persual of original research. Then time will come when such an eco-system will fall in place and India will be getting its due importance and recognition with regrad to original research.
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