Its soon gonna be time that the world starts thinking of new business models for no longer can just one be the king!

Whether you are in the States, the Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, Oceania, or Europe, a product that China makes is in majority of the stores. Today we wear and carry the world factory with us as none can presently manage the sale price as well as the Chinese have done so far.

In Dubai, UAE, I chatted with a few friends in the business line (with China) who said that we just can’t compete with them. One of the friends in the textile industry had this to say

“ they have eaten up our market, even the loading/unloading charges are included in their total costs”.

Then when everyone including Indians began to think that: that’s that, and its Chinese or no one else, we saw the duopolists rising and the businesses worldwide shouting: India you are next one! But why….

India is becoming the next big choice as lower costs are driving the trend. Labor in China earns about 300 USD a month while in India its 60 USD a month. I wouldn’t go to China if I were to outsource my manufacturing.

According to Capgemini, Europe’s largest computer consultancy,

there’s a very keen interest in moving more manufacturing to India

. These guys conducted a survey of 340 mainly Fortune 500 global manufacturing companies and was amazed to know that India would be a Challenger to China in the next 3-5 years while on its way to be a world factory too.

If we look at the respondents’ plans for the coming years, manufacturing will become the number one activity to be off-shored to India. “What surprised us was when we asked about their plans for the next three or four years, they said outsourcing manufacturing (to India) was a higher priority than outsourcing back office work,”

However the concerns from India are : its sad infrastructure as regards manufacturing and supply chain are concerned. Wonder if that’s possible in the next 2-3 years. Yup, 5 years it should be. There’s lots for India to catch up: power supply and roads and airports are major obstacles. And India is working on it seeing the opportunities in its stride. Capgemini’s official said: India is building like hell, improving its infrastructure, so a lot of suppliers would like to be there.

I would like to know what you think:

1. Will India be able to beat China?

2. What gestation period should we expect India to take to catch up with China and be equally known in manufacturing outsourcing as for IT and business process outsourcing activities 

3. Should China start worrying?
 

We have discussed a lot individually on India and China as emerging markets and on Chindia as a combo but today we talk about the aspect of other Asian markets that are enchasing high returns as well.

There’s Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines that’s making big bucks thanks to momentum amongst India and China. Do you think you could ignore them?

We share with you this impressive write up on the subject. Following are a few lines from it.

But what about the smaller markets around China and India? Many have growing economies and impressive returns. “Asia is emerging from a 10-year cyclical downturn that featured a collapse in domestic investment at both government and company levels,” says Edmund Harriss, co-manager of the Guinness Atkinson China & Hong Kong Fund

Read the complete article here and share with us what you think could be your next station.

India’s forex market may be minuscule when compared to developed economies but recent government efforts to ease capital movement has led to the country recording the fastest rise in its turnover growth over the last three years. India’s share in the worldwide foreign exchange market turnover has grown to 0.9% this year from a mere 0.3% in 2004
For the complete write up, read here

Congratulations India on wining the inaugural Twenty20 cricket World Cup- their first major trophy since 1983! A nail biting tense finish to a tournament of extremely high standards. We got to see it live on ESPN in China! Indian resturants in Beijing were completely packed and I heard of many Chinese enjoying the match as well. The number of Indian flags in the stadium - probably the largest concentration ever - reflected as though the match was played in the Subcontinent & not in South Africa.

A surprise package to have both India & Pakistan in the finals. This was NOT expected even in the wildest of expectations - particularly as both teams had an unceremonious exit from the World Cup in the Carribeans a few months back. With new teams & new captains they played some fearless cricket winning their matches. The Indian team was missing a coach as well!

So as young guns brought back India’s lost pride after a humiliating first round exit from the World Cup in the Caribbean, Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan was present to grace the occasion and spell his good luck charm. Well, he is the latest sporting icon for India after the release of his film Chak de India . The film looks like a good omen for Indian sport stars.

It all started with the Indian football team creating history after lifting their first ever Nehru Cup title with a 1-0 win over a 10-man Syria in a tough final played in Delhi on August 29, 2007. The victory spurred a resurgence of football in India. Undoubtedly the win was a return of sorts of the hit movie Chak de India , in which the Indian women’s hockey team comes from behind to claim the World Cup.

The next big win for Indian sport came on September 9, 2007. And this time the game that brought laurels to our country was the national sport, hockey. Amidst a roaring crowd, the Indian hockey team did something they last did four years ago - of winning a major multinational tournament - and this time it was the Asia Cup. India retained Asia Cup beating South Korea 7-2 in a hard fought final in Chennai. Not just the convincing win, but the Indian hockey team also added another feather to its cap. Its tally of 57 goals in the event became the highest for any team. Truely, a Chak de performance by the sporting sensations. 

Indians have a new hope for similar results in the Cricket World Cup. They had almost given up the fact that their cricket could be improved and that the teams major players would ever bring back a trophy in such a matxh besides their advertising money bags.

So do you think that India needs to get the stuck upons out and ensure that its teams is instilled with the right attitude, brains and “fresh” thinking.

In short has Indian cricket moved to Generation Next?? and is it a goodbye to the trinity of the Indian cricket? And lastly will it live up to it 

(Chak De is a Hindi language word that means go get your target. Its used to encourage the attempt!
 
It’s a word much spoken these days after the movie “Chak De India”, wherein the Indian Women’s Hockey Team, wins the world cup, due to the efforts on training put in by their coach young in age and thoughts and had the right attitude and passion required to take home the trophy. 

Chak Diya is said when that target has been achieved.)

The High Court of Madras (Chennai) has rejected a challenge to India’s patent laws this week from the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, paving the way for Indian drug manufacturers to continue to produce low cost generic drugs. The battle over the case has been long and complex, with Novartis arguing that the landmark ruling would discourage investments in innovation and would undermine attempts to improve products or heavily invest in much needed medical research. IP and Patent protection issues, according to Novartis, have now been weakened internationally and this would now lead to long term negative consequences for R&D into better medicines.

On the other hand, organisations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres, state that the ruling is “a huge relief for patients and doctors in developing countries who depend upon affordable medicines from India”, and have long campaigned for access to essential medicines. Aid organisations worldwide have hailed the ruling as “a victory for the rights of patients over patents”.

The case, keenly monitored by the international pharmaceutical industry, centered on Novartis requesting the court to clarify significant parts of the Indian Patent Legislation, arguing that it breached the Indian Constitution, and in particular the granting of patents for incremental developments. Although the full judgment has not been publically released, it is believed the judge was of the opinion that the court had no jurisdiction to rule over whether Indian patent law complied with WTO guidelines on Intellectual Property. The issue arose over a seperate case last year in which Novartis has been denied a patent in India on a freshly modified form of its leukemia drug Glivec. The decision had been made on the basis that the new drug was insufficiently innovative, as Indian patent legislation does not permit the practice of ‘evergreening’ - issuing patents for already known drugs that have undergone modification. Novartis comments however “medical progress occurs through incremental innovation. If Indian patent law does not recognize these important advances, patients will be denied new and better medicines”.

If the court had ruled in favor of Novartis, the decision would have allowed international pharmaceutical companies to receive patents on modifications of already known drugs, thus extending the time frame of their sole rights to produce them. Concerning the Glivec drug alone, this would have prevented Indian companies from manufacturing generic versions of the drug, which they sell for about a tenth of the price of the Novartis product, leading to large nunbers of cancer patients worldwide without access to any treatment. Indian companies provide 84% of the drugs to fight AIDS that Medicins Sans Frontieres supplies to patients worldwide, and more than 25% of other essential drugs used by them. Other relief agencies are equally dependent upon Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers generic brands.

Novartis have said it is ‘unlikely’ they will appeal to the Supreme Court.

Y.K Sapru, head of the Mumbai Cancer Patients Support Group commented “This is a major decision domestically in India and internationally. India has a USD5 billion value pharmaceutical industry and 65% of those drugs are sold to the developed world and it’s patients. All that would have been suspended if the judgement had gone the other way and there would have been a dearth of affordable drugs for the worlds poor. That potential calamity has now been prevented”.

In terms of our own viewpoint, it appears an obvious moral choice taken by the court, although the global drugs manufacturers - and possibly the WTO - have strategic issues now to decide upon in terms of patent laws infringing upon the overall benefit to mankind of permitting low cost essential products. Drug companies are in a commercial environment; and they are going to have to restructure their business models in order to maintain the ability to conduct research. If Novartis, in such an environment, claim they cannot maintain the necessary R&D if patent protection is not forthcoming to allow them to make back the enormous cost of such facilities, then their competitors will. In this case, common sense and a recognition of the moral requirement to limit profiteering at the expense of the poor has been timely, and reflects well upon the Indian legal system and the governments commitment to obligations to lift the worlds poor out of misery and disease.

A good friend of 2point6billion, Nick Polimeni, is an experienced QC engineer and conducts work in both China and India. He’s had some interesting comments to make recently to us about Engineering standards in these countries, and the potential competition with the US in technological innovation. I quote:

I’ve been working in China for the last 4 years, and have met more ‘engineers’ than I had met in the previous 30 years. Chinese students who graduate as engineers are not what we call engineers in the west. Chinese Engineers “specialize” in a given application. They’re more like technicians, by U.S. standards. They do not seem to be trained in basic engineering science, and are very deficient in such things. I have yet to meet a single one who has any familiarity for example, with the laws of thermodynamics. I’ve worked with a wide variety of them in various fields. The few who know enough to think with science, have acquired it after years of experience.