Foreign bosses may help India Inc to negotiate global drive

While the West has learnt to live with the global brands such as Pepsico and Vodafone being run by India-born executives, Indians too will soon have to accept foreign bosses as their companies gain multinational status.

But getting foreign CEOs may not mean lack of confidence in homegrown executives, for whom no challenge is too big and no detail too small.

Sowing the seeds of change was none other than Ratan Tata, the face of India Inc and head of the country's largest corporate group Tata, who believes it is quite possible that one day his huge business empire could be run by a non-Indian.

When the Tata group chairman held out this possibility in an interview to a German magazine 'De Spiegel', he acknowledged that Indian might not be ready as yet for this eventuality. But the possibility speaks volumes about the emergence of Indian Multinationals on the global arena.

"We have to think globally," Tata said. And this theory is being exercised by the Tata group as well as a number of Indian companies expand to foreign shores through mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, overseas units and all possible business avenues.

In a sign of the times to come, some companies already have foreign executives on board. Case in point - Tata Teleservices CEO Darryl Green, Jet Airways CEO Setve Forte and Air Deccan COO Warwick Brady.

Tata is already aggressive about expanding overseas and a fine example is its latest buy - Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus. So is Jet Airways, which is on the threshold of seeking a global identity.

The list of the Indian companies making it big globally such as Infosys, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, Birla group, Reliance Industries, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's and ONGC.

When asked to list out names of the Indian multinational companies (MNCs), a senior analyst at a global consultancy firm puts it up rightly, saying it would be an insult to many if you name out some 50, or 100 firms, as the list runs much more than that when you count the companies with presence across various countries.

Even within the IT sector, leave aside giants such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS, hardly there is a company that could not be called an MNC, he said, adding that the companies from a host of sectors including auto, telecom, energy and banking are already present across the sub-continents.

There are no big-bang MNC brands such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Pepsi, BMW or Sony as yet, but it could just be matter of time before India also comes up with such names. At least they are on their way to acquiring them - literally.

According to Grant Thornton, in March alone, 57 M&A deals associated with India Inc worth over $2 billion were announced, out of which there were 29 cross-border deals worth a whopping value of over $1.8 billion. Prior to that, 102 M&A deals worth $37 billion were announced in the first two months of 2007, which included over 60 cross-border deals worth about $36 billion.

So far home-grown electronics to energy conglomerate Videocon may be among the few claiming to be an "Indian Multinational" in its commercials, but it should not come as a surprise if more domestic firms start similar advertising campaigns going ahead, said an ad agency executive.

And this is not limited to IT or other services segment "" it is steadily enveloping industries across the board including manufacturing, utilities and automotive sectors.

This is by no means an exhaustive list and these ten most dynamic of them have been killer investments over the past year, it added, naming out Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra, Bharat Forge, Rediff.Com, Infosys, Wipro, Dr Reddy's Labs, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank.

Among these ten, Bharat Forge might be a little known name for many, but this steel forgings and auto parts manufacturer and is a supplier to global giants such as DaimlerChrysler and General Motors (GM) and has manufacturing operations in the US, Germany, Sweden, Scotland and China.

Similarly, Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) is the third largest pharma company in the country and around 86 per cent of its global sales come from outside India.

Besides, overseas markets account for over 80 per cent of total annual revenue for a number of IT companies.

With acquisitions such as Novelis and Corus, Indian giants such as Hindalco and Tata are also likely to gate-crash into the elite Fortune-500 list this year alone, while the years to come might see a number of compatriots rubbing shoulders with existing torch bearers such as ONGC, RIL, Indian Oil, HPCL, BPCL and SBI.

"There is a great dynamism among Indian corporates to globalise and in the years to come we are going to have more Indian multinationals," Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath said at the recently held International Conference. on Indian cross-border acquisitions.