Are Indians capable enough to become global brands?
This year we have completed 20 years of globalization. The time has come to introspect why only few Indians have become global brands? Do we lack the competence or the branding skills?
INDIAN LIBERALISATION has completed 20 years (1991-2011) and many Indian companies and products have become global during this period? But very few Indians have become global (personal) brands?
The world still knows India for Gandhi, Lord Buddha, Swami Vivekananda and may be a few more. Few Indians who have become globally respected Indians post 1991 include Mukesh Ambani (Forbes list), Ratan Tata (Nano),Narayan Murthy ( Infosys), Indira Nooyi (Pepsi) and now Anna Hazare (for not so proud reasons for the country).
While Indians (Robin Sharma, Shiv Khera and Deepak Chopra) motivate the world, we still seem to be demoralized with our problems of corruption, unemployment and population explosion. Are Indians not capable of becoming globally respected or are we poor at branding skills? In products also, we are known for selling unbranded commodities rather than branded products. Will Indians be known only for non-violence, spirituality, BPO and may be software?
The branding of an average Indian may have improved as we are considered good at analytical professions like software development and teaching and we have decent knowledge of English (the international language).What are the prime areas where we lack and what stops us from becoming global brands? After all, what stops us from moving up from good to great? Indians need to get out of the blame game and stop blaming the government and infrastructure for all our failures.
If we have to become globally respected we have to encourage excellence through training, coaching, consulting and exposure to the global best practices. That’s all we need. We are already hardworking, ambitious and ready to take the world in our stride. Lord Macaulay gave the following speech to British parliament in February 1835. “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in the country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."
Our culture teaches us to forgive and we need not have any grudges against the fact that British have made us loose our self-esteem. We only were naïve that we did not understand their designs. The time has come to self-introspect and get the pride back. In fact, with wisdom we can always convert poison into medicine and use the knowledge of English language (an inheritance from British rule) to become Global Brands. Dear Indians, you are like the Rip Van Winkle who had gone for a long sleep. You need to wake up and the world is waiting to be conquered by you. We need to build our backbone again to bring back that pride.
Our literature, Ayurveda, Yoga, family values, the traditional wisdom and the holistic living concepts have all the answers which we seek. Our own Tamil Nadu is a good example of the cultural pride which has really helped Tamilians in becoming global brands. We have forgotten our culture and that’s why we have lost our self-esteem. The day we realize that, we shall be ready to become global brands and a truly respected nation. Remember we came up with the concept of true globalization 5,000 years ago (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam or world is one family) I do not have any doubts that Indians can become global or not. Do you doubt still?
About The Author
Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant and Social Media Trainer. He is based in New Delhi, India. His philosophy is, "Take charge of your life and your brand". He writes a blog,The Joys of Teaching.
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Its such a pleasure to read something like this and realise that what we are today is all because of reasons generated by ourselves...no one else is to be blamed... the beauty of this article is its simplicity in writing
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