Why India does poorly in building large companies

We had in an earlier article (‘Superman entrepreneurs driving the Indian economy’, August 24) described how Superman entrepreneurs (SEs), a force-of-nature kind of entrepreneur, had been driving India's growth by overcoming the odds and creating dynamic companies.

- Janmejaya Sinha

However, one common complaint about Indian entrepreneurs has been their general inability to create real-scale global-sized companies. Indian labour laws are one factor inhibiting size, but importantly, the superpowers that helped these SEs build their companies, in the lingo of popular comics, after a certain size, become their kryptonite. They fail to find leverage for themselves and become the bottleneck for their company’s continuing growth. So many of these companies get stuck in the ₹5,000 to ₹15,000 crore range trap.

True leverage: Finding true leverage or finding trustworthy lieutenants is not easy for them. They are used to the loyal order takers who can execute. Finding people who can work with vision and autonomy is not easy for them. Their personality type makes true delegation unnatural for them. To break out of the mid-income trap, they must overcome their own biases and inhibitions. This is the only way in which they will be able to truly create what they set out to do— build a global market leader that can outlive them. India, more than ever, needs them to do so.