Sunday, September 17, 2006

Local Indian, Global Indian!

India has always been in close contact with the rest of the world.Right from the dawn of civilisation India established limks with the then known parts of the world. We were a nation of great seafarers and our ships sailed to many directions. We had the famous 'Silk Route' and land routes to China. India had a great entrepreneurial and business tradition and commerce flourished. The first fifty years of Independence saw us adopt the wrong economic policies which capped our abilities and talents. Of course, it is hindsight bias which makes us say so. We were cocooned and many controls put on foreign travel. Now with Indian software companies going places, Indians have begun to travel extensively to many different parts of the world. The Continent, Far East, South America which were all places that our Anglo-Saxon education never taught us as in existence. Our professionals or techies do find it difficult to comprehend those cultures and life styles. Modern day business being 75% people skills and 25% technical knowledge. Sotware companies have begun to invest heavily in imparting soft skills or cross cultural training to their employees. Other industries are to follow suit. Soon we shall see the Global Indian, suave, sophisticated, polished and at home in any clime and culture. May that day dawn soon.