Monday, December 06, 2021

It’s Easier to Get More from an Existing Customer than to Look for a New One.

 

Indians around the world have been cheering. The Overseas Indian Community now claims yet another CEO of a top technology company with the elevation of Parag Agrawal, who replaced Jack Dorsey as CEO of Twitter.

At the age of 37, Mr. Agrawal joins a distinguished list of people of Indian origin who have become big time CEOs, like Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Shantanu Narayan at Adobe, Indra Nooyi of Pepsico and Ajay Banga of Mastercard. A more comprehensive list of people of Indian Origin who have become CEOs of international companies can be found at:

https://www.viralindiandiary.com/indian-ceos-international-companies-networth/

Mr. Agrawal’s elevation to the top job at Twitter has made management theorist excited. Articles about how Indians, who only make up some six percent of Silicon Valley, managed to get a “disproportionate” share of the top jobs around have bene popping up. The following article from the BBC is an example:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59457015

Mr. Agrawal’s elevation has been a good moral booster for “Brand India,” “Brand IIM” and “Brand IIT,” which for my personal branding, was great, since two of my career highlights came from serving “Brand IIM” and “Brand IIT.” Working for the respective alumni associations was great for “shoulder rubbing.”

However, one has to ask, how does the elevation of Mr. Agrawal benefit anyone else besides himself and Twitter. This was the question raised by Wion News (which is a channel, I don’t often watch based on the fact that their views tend to border on being a little Indian Jingoistic.).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K37cElKncI8

 

There were two key points made. Firstly, is the fact that the loyalty of a CEO of a Company is not to the country of his birth but to his shareholders wherever they may be.  The Wion report talked about how Google led by Indian born and educated Sundar Pichai was currently fighting court cases in India. Mr. Pichai’s duty is not to make India prosperous but to ensure his shareholders in America got the best returns possible.

This leads to the second point raised, which was the fact that China, which produced none of Silicon Valley’s CEOs, has produced far more tech unicorns (a start-up with a valuation of USD one billion). It goes without saying that a technology unicorn in a country does more to create wealth in that particular country than having person born in a country become CEO of a big company in another country.

If you take these points further, it would seem that the key advantage that China has over India is the fact that its “talent” wants to come back. The Chinese with brains and drive move back to China to do things. There was a time when the wealthiest Chinese were people like Li Ka Shing of Hong Kong and Ng Teng Fong from Singapore, who moved outside of China and bought land the most expensive real estate markets. Today, the wealthiest Chinese are people like Jack Ma and Ma Huateng of Alibaba and Tencent, who are technology people, creating new ways for people in China to do things.  

With notable exceptions like NR. Narayana Murthi of Infosys (who was working in India before he started Infosys), Azim Premji of Wipro (who had to cut his studies at Stanford when his father died) and Arun Jain of IntellectDesign Arena (who was offered a job at Wang Laboratories in the USA but turned it down), the Indians who have brains, prefer to stay outside of India.

One of China’s great tricks in its rise was to harness the Chinese diaspora. Initial foreign investment and expertise came from Chinese origin businessmen in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Say what you like about the Communist Government in China but making China welcome to Chinese born outside of China was strategically sound.

Can India do the same. The Indian diaspora is not just rich in funds but also in expertise. Indian have thrived in America and Europe as well as remote markets like Africa and the Middle East. However, while you have the odd Arun Jain of Intellect Design Arena, India has yet to create an emotional bond with its diaspora the way China did. I think of a young Indian executive in a multinational IT firm who said “I DON’T want to go back to India,” when I suggested that he could have a good life earning in USD but living in India (The Company he worked for had been bought out by a US based Company).

As much as the Immigration and Check Point Authority (ICA) may not like to admit it, India does provide quite a few lessons, namely in the fact that we have to question if our immigration policies are making it such that talented Singaporeans don’t want to stay and build things in Singapore.

The main debate on immigration in Singapore has been about attracting talent, including members of the Indian diaspora. The government argues that we need “foreign talent,” to invest in Singapore and to create value-creating jobs for Singaporeans. The people on the ground complain that people from elsewhere “steal” jobs from the locals.

I will avoid getting into the nitty gritty of that debate since everyone else does so. In principle, I don’t disagree with being open to talent from elsewhere. As a small trade dependent nation, we cannot afford to shut our doors and let’s face it, we need to measure ourselves against “best in the world” rather than “best in Singapore.”

However, we need to ask if we’re going all out to get “foreign” talent at the expense of driving away local talent. Let’s take a look at what happens in the field of music. Singapore goes out of its way to attract musicians from all over the world as part of our efforts to be a “global city.” We spent lots of money to build a “world class” facility in the shape of the Esplanade and we lose money so that we can have great cultural events and get great musicians from elsewhere to play here.

Yet, what did we do when we produced one classical pianist that the rest of the world seems to value? We threatened to lock him up for not serving his national service even though he left Singapore as a child. Think about it, you can listen to Melvyn Tan play anywhere in the world – except in Singapore.

Look what happened with Ben Davis and Harry Britwistle, who were talented enough to be selected to play in English Premier League Clubs. They had to give up their citizenship to pursue their dreams. It was National Service and keep the passport, by which then they would be of no use to the clubs that selected them, or never to set foot in Singapore and pursue the dream. It should be no surprise which path they chose.

Whilst we deny talented Singaporeans the chance to play in the English Premier league or any of the top European leagues, we’re more than happy to spend money bringing those teams to Singapore:

https://www.scmp.com/sport/football/article/3008389/asia-pre-season-tours-barcelona-manchester-clubs-and-juventus-lead

Nothing wrong with attracting talented foreigners but it should not be at the expense of our local budding talents. We have some 340,000 Singaporeans living overseas. Many of them are highly educated and talented people, who have left for a variety of reasons. A list of “Overseas” Singaporeans can be found at the following link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Singaporean

Many of have taken different nationalities and I can understand that. Unlike, say the USA, which is huge, there are limits in Singapore’s limited geographical space. However, shouldn’t we be cultivating links with them – the people who are already here rather than trying to get more people from elsewhere?

It’s this simple. In business, they say its easier to get more business from an existing customer than to look for a new one. If you apply that logic, it’s surely easier and cheaper to get a talented Singaporeans to work for Singapore than to spend so much money to get people from elsewhere to work for Singapore. Sounds simple to me, if only it were so for our policy makers.

 

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Maira Gall