Even as the economy is showing strong signs of revival, Hindustan Unilever Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Nitin Paranjape today warned the turbulent events of past 18 months will keep recurring with greater intensity and frequency.
"The turbulent events of the recent months weren't the first and are not going to be the last. We will see several more such events with increasing intensity and greater frequency, for we are living in a world that is significantly more interconnected today than it ever was," Paranjape said.
Recounting the oil shock of 1973, India's sovereign default in the early 90s, East Asian currency meltdown in 1997 and the Dubai debt crisis, he said nations and governments must be ready to face such crises in future too, as such events will dramatically alter assumptions and cause an upheaval in the position that one takes for granted.
"And such upheavals would be driven by innovation and the rapid pace of technological changes," he told the students of Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies here, while taking on 'Managing Turbulence: The Innovation Imperative'.
One such challenge in the making is the shortage of skilled manpower, he said and quoted a report compiled by various industry bodies, which estimated that country will need 300 million skilled workmen in future if it wants to sustain 9 per cent GDP growth.
"We may face a shortage of 300 million skilled hands to drive that 9 per cent growth we are talking about. The task for us is to find a way to drive all-round development," he said, adding, "we have to challenge the belief that there will be a trickle down effect of growth as it is too slow. Instead we must find innovative models that will involve early on people who are currently not in the growth phase."