1. Corporate Success Strategies
2. Finance: Investing in Emerging India
3. Healthcare: The Path Ahead
4. Macroeconomics and Development
5. IT Enabled Services and Off-Shoring
6. Media and Entertainment
| Corporate Success Strategies |  |
While Indian startups have achieved dramatic and quick success, India has a vast number of struggling, “old economy” companies. India’s economy will not really take off until these companies are restructured and transformed. Anu Aga, Ranjana Kumar, B.V.R. Subbu, and Rajeev Karwal have succeeded in India where few others have: they have turned around Industrial Goods, Financial Services, Multinational Manufacturers, and Consumer Products companies. In the process of (re-)building huge companies, each one of them has won international acclaim.
What does it take to turn around a company? How does one do so in the trying conditions of an emerging market like India? Each one of these leaders will describe their unique leadership approach, and help us understand what they did. In addition, they will shed light on what the future holds, and how to take advantage of turnaround opportunities.
Panel Speakers for "Corporate Success Strategies"
| Finance: Investing in Emerging India | |
This panel discussion will explore the opportunities and challenges associated with investing in India. The topics discussed will include India’s economic climate, its emerging capital markets, Indian investment opportunities and risks, and the potential impact of regulatory reform.
Panel Speakers for "Finance: Investing in Emerging India"
| Healthcare: The Path Ahead | |
Indian pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed significant success in the last decade putting India firmly on the Healthcare map. Last year for the first time we had a healthcare panel at WIEF which highlighted the rapid growth of Indian drug companies and the emergence of healthcare as the next global industry. This year we focus inwards to debate the path ahead for ensuring quality healthcare for all Indians. We have invited a wide spectrum of speakers representing different parts of the Indian healthcare value chain - Multinational pharmaceutical companies, domestic biotechnology success stories, pioneers of world-class indigenous hospitals, public health activists and healthcare thought leaders.
As part of the panel discussion we will debate the challenges facing each sub-sector and the interlinkages between them that need to be addressed to provide quality healthcare to all Indians.
Questions to be debated include: What are the key public health challenges facing India today? Is liberalization of health insurance a must to ensure greater access to better drugs and quality hospitals? Will the adoption of patent laws in India encourage multinational companies to focus on the Indian market or can indigenous companies develop affordable medicines for Indians? With the increasing role of private players in healthcare how can the government ensure public health priorities are met? How can India learn from the growth of healthcare systems internationally and capitalize on its increasing participation in the global healthcare industry?
Panel Speakers for "Healthcare: The Path Ahead"
| Macroeconomics and Development | |
Much has been made of India's booming IT industry and rapidly multiplying cadres of software programmers. Despite the fanfare, India's software industry represents a mere 2% of the country's GDP. Over 80% of India's population still lives in her villages, where stagnant growth and crumbling public infrastructure contributes to the country's 'third world' status. This panel will explore the current political and economic landscape, assess where India stands relative to other countries, and determine what must happen next, and what is likely to happen next.
Panel Speakers for "Macroeconomics and Development"
| IT Enabled Services and Off-Shoring | |
IT enabled services outsourcing has been in the headlines for the last several years and has made Indian providers very successful. This panel will seek to explore how entrenched India's competitive advantage in the offshore outsourcing space really is.
In particular, how can India ensure that it secures and maintains a lasting preferred destination standing in the face of competition from Philippines, Eastern Europe, Canada and low cost locations in the US? Moreover, Indian vendors, as a result of being inextricably linked with the US economy are now susceptible to risks arising from shifts in the US business and political climate. How can Indian vendors effectively insulate or insure themselves against these risks? Further, as most companies (outsourcing service users) in a sector outsource to low cost locations, labor cost arbitrage will become less attractive as a competitive advantage to these companies. How will offshoring providers evolve to continue to provide a strong and sustainable value proposition that goes beyond labor cost arbitrage? What measures can providers of offshoring services based in India take to address the sense of risk that clients face when they consider off-shoring more complex processes? What are the challenges to growth that providers of offshoring services face? What implications does the entry of multinationals like IBM have for the Indian outsourcing industry? Finally, the panel will explore other trends in the offshoring space such as increased consolidation, the captive locations model, and dealing with employee churn at offshoring vendors.
Panel Speakers for "IT Enabled Services and Off-Shoring"
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Both in India and across the globe, Indians are playing leadership roles to exploit emerging business opportunities in Media & Entertainment. These opportunities are being fueled by an explosion and convergence of new technologies—Internet, wireless, broadband, satellite, cable, and so on—combined with consumer desire for greater access and content variety. The result: a dramatic expansion of both the range and scope of content and distribution mediums leading to tremendous growth in Indian Media & Entertainment. Furthermore, as consumer uptake continues to increase, the gap between innovation and application continues to narrow.
Technological advancement aside, significant growth is also being attributed to the important role media and communications is playing in catering to an increasing populous—both domestically and internationally—and to its expanding role outside the narrow bounds of traditional protocol. As a result, everything from advertising, news media, Internet content, television, and film in India are all experiencing unprecedented growth as incumbents and new entrants alike utilize new mediums to extend their reach.
However, with tremendous growth comes tremendous change. During this evolution, several provocative economic, social, political, and cultural issues have been raised and will undoubtedly continue to surface. For example, will increased access to globally available content and information put India at risk of a cultural invasion, will traditional Indian values erode, is the local political and economic infrastructure suitable for long-term industry success, can Indian M&E successfully expand globally, what structural changes are required to push the industry forward, and what might the future of Indian M&E hold, represent just a handful of several issues that are still unanswered.
