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Gearing up to fight the Chinese dragon

Preeti Mehra

NEW DELHI, Sept. 2

CONVENING in the time of slowdown means deliberating on how to get over the economic impasse. Specially the Chinese dragon that looms large over Indian industry and threatens its very existence.

And that's exactly what 800 delegates from top corporate companies are planning to do in Chennai this week

(September 6,7 & 8) at the 28th National Management Convention being organised by the All India Management Association (AIMA) in collaboration with the Madras Management Association.

The topic under discussion, `Building Sustainable Competitive Strength' could not be more apt right now with cheap Chinese goods threatening the Indian manufacturing industry and the national economic scenario far from rosy.

``In 1998, when industry was on the upswing, we deliberated on `Towards India Inc.' Last year with the WTO implications for industry, we discussed, `Managing in the era of uncertainty'. This year with the slowdown we realised that it is vital to take a l ook at our inherent strengths and find out which ones are sustainable,'' says the AIMA Director-General, Maj Gen D.N. Khurana.

The list of speakers and the areas of probe at the convention present both national and international paradigms and will ultimately emerge into an action plan for corporates to be also circulated to policy makers and the upper segment of business schools .

However, the highlight of the conference will be the principal findings of a study about China to be presented by Mr Sudarshan Sampathkumar, Partner, Accenture, the erstwhile Anderson Consulting. He will present key learnings from the growth of the Chine se manufacturing sector and review how it could apply to the Indian context.

Setting the Convention into context will be Mr Graham Henry, Asia Pacific Head of Accenture who will throw light on the global economic environment and its impact on economies, organisations and individuals, of course with emphasis on the Indian market.

Deliberating on the market situation in the Asia Pacific region will be Prof Bhanoji Rao from the University of Singapore. He will also analyse why other countries in the region have outpaced India in economic growth and what are the reforms required for India to catch up.

The Indian perspective will be put into place by Director General NCAER, Mr Suman Bery, who will define India's competitive strengths and suggest how these can be honed to advantage.

To illustrate how we can use our strengths and succeed despite the snarl of the Chinese dragon, case studies of a few Indian corporates will be presented.

Mr Deepak Puri, Managing Director of Moser Baer Ltd. will describe how his company, the second largest producer in the world of recordable optical media, produces volumes of scale that cannot even be matched by China. The others relating their success st ories would be Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, Punjab Tractors Ltd, plus BBDO Worldwide and Baron International Ltd on the marketing front.

The Convention will end with the most crucial, but peripheral issues, such as building people-centric organisations and corporate social responsibility. However, this is not the end of AIMA's agenda for the Convention.

Having invited Management associations from Mauritius, Qatar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, they hope to convert SAAMO, their South Asian management association into one that represents the entire Indian Ocean rim.