After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, global CEOs and investors have raised the toast on India but they have also pointed to a range of issues that need to be addressed. Bloomberg TV India caught up with Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO at advertising and marketing giant WPP, to get a candid view of whether MNCs are happy with the action on the ground.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States has evoked a positive response from global corporations and investors. Yet, global CEOs have highlighted a host of issues that are clouding the investment climate. Questions have been raised on the action on the ground even though Modi had drawn up ambitious strategies. What’s your view?
There are concerns among foreign multinational firms when they see the Vodafone tax case study or when they see what happened with Nestle and Maggi — both the companies are major clients of ours.
And also, for another example, Nokia and the transferring of its factories to Microsoft, also big clients of ours, in southern India.
So, I think there are concerns and I have heard members of the government say — why is it the media focus on the negatives and don’t focus on the positives.
And the Prime Minister and the new ministers have stated, in a relatively short period of time, very sophisticated, all-embracing broad strategic plans.
But a few years ago there was a big debate amongst business school professors about what is more important — strategy or execution.
And I was always amused by this debate because some would say strategy is important, you don’t have to worry about the execution, and others would say the vice-versa, that execution is more important, you don’t have to worry about the strategy.
The honest answer is both. The Prime Minister has exactly the same issue in mind.
He has a very ambitious strategy, he is a tremendous communicator and orator, and of course it is not just about orating or appealing over the heads of Parliament to the electorate but it is also a question of doing a little bit of arm-twisting.
It is LBJ (former US President Lyndon B Johnson) and JFK (John F Kennedy) and Ronald Reagan, so you have to get both attributes.
So you have the strategy and then you’ll have to implement it and you should have the structure and the bench strength to get it done.
In a nutshell, you saw a lot of CEOs listen to the Prime Minister, and you discussed what he said. Can we just gather it in or get carried away with the entire hype around the visit? Were the CEOs asking serious questions?
Generally they varnish it a bit. I think it is difficult, even in a small group of people, to be absolutely blunt about what they listen to here.
But having said all that, India is the last man left standing of the BRICS.
Even if you call it BRIICS, and you include South Africa, China, Indonesia, Russia, India and Brazil, India is the best one.
If I rank the BRICS, I would say India and then probably China and then it can be Brazil and, at the bottom Russia, because obviously they have some long-term issues.