Business Today hosts CEOs for a power breakfast

Seventeen CEOs gathered at The Oberoi in Bangalore on November 8, 2013, for the Business Today Power Breakfast, a series of CEO roundtables organised to discuss burning issues.

Munching cookies, bacon, fried eggs and sipping miso soup among others, the executives debated multiple issues around India's demographic dividend, the paradox of the country's young millions and the ever escalating skilling costs and wages. The discussion was anchored by Managing Editor Josey Puliyenthuruthel. Huvida Marshall, VP and GM of The Oberoi, Bangalore, hosted the discussion.

Manish Sabharwal (right), Chairman of staffing company TeamLease speaks to Krishnakumar Natarajan, CEO of IT company Mindtree. Sabharwal set the context for the discussion, pointing out India's failure to reform its labour market. Four labour market variables, he said, remain where they were in 1991 - 12 per cent manufacturing employment, 90 per cent informal employment, 50 per cent self-employment, and 50 per cent agricultural employment. "These transitions are not happening because there is a problem connecting demand to supply, repairing supply for demand and preparing supply for demand," he said.

T.K. Kurien, CEO of IT services exporter Wipro, speaks at the meet. There will be less good news for the armies of engineering students in the future, he warned. Regular IT work is getting automated and there are geopolitical concerns - many countries want to generate more local employment, which means fewer opportunities for Indians in the IT industry going ahead, Kurien added. 

Sharad Sharma, co-founder of product industry think tank iSPIRT, feels India is grossly peddling the myth that it has a labour arbitrage opportunity at the low-end of the market. Few years ago, he said, many jobs were generated in the medical transcription industry, for instance. However, it fizzled out because of automation. "How long will it take to eat up rest of the jobs? We won't need the services industry in the scale we see it today," he warned.

CEO of Mindtree, Krishnakumar Natarajan disagrees that everything will get automated in the future. There is still money to be made at the 'bottom of the pyramid' and there is nothing wrong in generating such jobs if there is value for the stakeholders, he said.

Sean Blagsvedt, CEO, of entry-level job search site babajob, says India's skill focus is at the wrong place. Instead of focusing on training at an advanced stage, the country should start early, according to him - encourage kids to make a product, for instance.

Investor Meena Ganesh speaks to Business Today's Managing Editor Josey Puliyenthuruthel. India needs to change its curriculum, particularly in government schools, she said. "We are not allowing our children to think, to ask questions," she said, adding that in a global workforce, we need cross-functional thinking and those skills set does not exist.

Aromar Revi, Director of the Indian Institute For Human Settlements, feels India needs to fix its teacher education system. That could also be huge business opportunity, according to him.

Sanjay Murdeshwar, Managing Director of AstraZeneca Pharma, feels India could potentially create many more pharma jobs, going ahead. "Over the next 10-20 years, a lot of products are going to go off-patent around the world. There is a lot of pharmaceutical production required. But curriculum and what the industry wants has to be very clear," he said.

Hari Vasudev, Head of Yahoo! India R&D, stressed that for India to take advantage of the demographic dividend, it has to look beyond knowledge services and high-end industries - construction sector and low-end manufacturing, for instance.

Jeff White, President, Cisco India & SAARC, feels the Indian government needs to take ownership. He had a frustrating time convincing the government on some issues. He pointed to preferred market access - the government's drive to promote local manufacturing. "We are spending time trying to educate the government on how to make that happen. One job in manufacturing drives seven jobs in the ecosystem. Trying to get the message into the government is very challenging," he said.

Navneet Kapoor, President and Managing Director of Target India, has a more positive view of India's labour market. "For the longest time, we thought of engineering and medicine as the two key professions to send our kids to. That's changing," he said. Hundreds are starting their own companies and are talking of products. "The society around us is changing," he added.

Sanjay Nayak, co-founder of telecom products company Tejas Networks, opined India needs to create engines of growth that are within its control. Electronics and tourism are two potential job creating sectors that have not been properly tapped, he said.