WHAT'S HOLDING BACK INDIAN BRANDS FROM GOING GLOBAL?

Well begun, Mr Goyal!

- ARCHNA SHUKLA

Are Indian entrepreneurs lazy, risk-averse, unimaginative, tightfisted control freaks? Well, it would seem so, going by the debate on why India, the world's fourth-largest economy on track to be the third-largest, doesn't have any global consumer brands to speak of.

Addressing a Ficci event in August, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal held the lack of ambition among Indian entrepreneurs as the factor for the country's inability to produce brands with global recall. It's a lament he's repeated subsequently. Indian corporate leaders, such as Uday Kotak and Harsh Goenka, have echoed his sentiment.

At a time when India is making waves on both the geopolitical and economic fronts, it is a fair question to ask why corporate India has failed to showcase any popular brands on global shelves. Forget the brick-and-mortar era consumer brands, India, a supposed tech power, doesn't have any new-age, global digital consumer brands either. Even if one ignores the all-pervading names such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple that originate from the much-developed part of the world, there are brands like Samsung, LG, Haier, Oppo, Vivo, Huawei, and BYD from India's neighbourhood.

To be sure, the Tatas, M&M, Adani, and Infosys are some of the Indian corporations that enjoy a global recognition, but these are not universally recognized consumer brands.