India presents a unique growth story, one that has both, a bottom-up appeal as well as a compelling top-down narrative. A large part of it is driven by fundamental structural reforms over the past decade which have managed to create a framework to realise the country’s full potential in terms of its intellectual capital as well as its favourable demographics.

 

While I do not doubt projections made by the global analyst community on where India would be able to place itself by the turn of this century, I do believe India is at an inflexion point and this supernormal growth can only be achieved through robust strategic planning and proactive engagement by the champion sectors that are expected to take the lead. 

 

This certainly cannot be achieved in an autopilot mode. Our growth sectorsare highly diverse and find within them a fair degree of complexity. As a result, while each growth sector should have its own strategy based on its respective stage of maturity, there are several “winning themes” that these sectors can draw from each other and further adapt to their specific and unique context. I see eight guiding themes gaining importance in the Indian growth context.

1. Elevate the playing field from local to global – Going forward, it will be important to transform India’s sectoral traditional strengths towards global play. Be it manufacturing or services sector, re-shaping businesses through technology will help make them addressable to the global market. Pharmaceuticals, electronics, and textile sectors serve as credible examples that have begun establishing global hubs in India; several other sectors are well positioned to follow suit.

2. Premiumise offerings through differentiation – We will need to move beyond commodity play and go after value pockets that come available through the premiumisation of products and/ or services to solutions. The retail sector is leading the pack by creating a level playing field across trade formats enabling omni-channel and online–to-offline channels in an effort to elevate the customer experience. The media & telecom sector also serves as a great example where customer product offerings and services have gone through a game-changing value enhancement.

3. Formulate and embed digital business models – In this idea-based economy, Digital is not just gaining importance in terms of efficient ways of working but also becoming a value-accretive business model of its own.  Digital offshoots of traditional banks and stand-alone fintech plug-ins have gained immense traction in the recent past, demonstrating truly differentiated value propositions and shorter break-even cycles. Retail sector building B2B and B2C volume-based marketplace constructs on the back of digital, is another credible case in point.

4. Make supply chains resilient – Given the geo-political dynamics which are gaining an irreversible navigational complexity, it will be critical for our growth sectors to think through alternate “backup” supply chains when it comes to securing goods and/or services. The automotive sector has already begun developing plus-1 strategies when it comes to alternate fuel value chains and making that mindset the new norm for their forward-back growth blueprints.

5. Build partnerships-led ecosystems – Collaboration is replacing competition. Erstwhile competitors are coming together to leverage each other’s strengths and leapfrog their respective capability development curves. It is becoming increasingly relevant to explore vertical and horizontal value chain partnerships to establish dominance. Led by telecommunications, other leading sectors such as energy, automotive, and retail have begun building inter-connected and self-sustaining ecosystems. There is still a large headroom for other sectors to explore such deepening and widening plays.

6. Leverage the unique demographics – Given the unique characteristics that India’s population profile presents, businesses need to be shaped around capturing the true value from this vector. The real estate sector has been focusing actively on capturing value in the affordable housing segment. Financial institutions are taking bold steps to tap the significant potential within micro, small and medium enterprises. Assessing how demographics can be woven into other sectoral business strategies can help maximize the dividend.

7. Map to policy frameworks – As sectors formulate their strategies and investment choices, alignment with Government policies and regulatory frameworks should be considered par for the course and baked into the growth levers. Capitalising on Government programs such as Make in India, industry-specific PLIs and State-specific incentives is bound to augur well in sectoral journey plans. Infrastructure, manufacturing and energy sectors are proven examples.

8. Upgrade talent quotient – People skills as a strategic enabler will require much greater attention. Putting together a clear and time-bound talent step-up road map for skill development needs to become table stakes. We can witness the BPO sector capabilities of India being upskilled to pivot into next-generation digital customer experience and digital analytics spaces. Going forward, it will be mission-critical for every sector to review its talent requirements for the future and place implementation of the same on the front burner. In sum, India’s growth champion sectors must adopt a leap strategy to unlock the ambitious value they have set for themselves in the future. An incremental approach at this point would only be value-limiting. As sectors make their strategies and investment choices for the future, keeping in mind the themes discussed and shaping them to best fit their respective sectoral intricacies can help “India Inc.” stand resilient to its chalked-out game plan.

Eight guiding themes for India Inc to take the “strategic leap”