Rajesh Panda is a Gold Medalist from NIT, Rourkela and an MBA from S.P.Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai. He is based out of Singapore and is the Founder and Managing Director of Corporate Gurukul which aims to make engineering and management graduates, globally employable and industry-ready, through global learning experiences programmes. Rajesh is also the Chairperson of the Higher Education Forum (HEF), Odisha and Singapore chapters. Corporate Citizen talks to him about the professional environment in Singapore, which has become the global headquarters of 6000 Multi-National Companies (MNCs) and has a large group of young corporate managers working there.
Rajesh Panda: After I graduated from NIT, Rourkela, my first job was with HCL Hewlett Packard, after which I did my MBA from S.P.Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR). Post my MBA in Marketing, in 2002, I got a job for business development with HCL Technologies in Singapore. I dabbled in two other entrepreneurial ventures in Singapore one was an embedded systems company and the other was Performance Consulting International, a leadership consulting firm in Singapore. Finally, in 2007 I left my job in Singapore and founded `Corporate Gurukul’ (CG) in November, the same year.
It is a learning and development company to make young managers, globally employable. We started our focus with undergraduate students from engineering institutes and we have now moved to corporates in India, to whom we impart various global skills. We provide three services - training, assessment and consulting. In the consulting space we address companies as well as institutes on different initiatives. For educational institutes we advise on infrastructure , the processes required for it, research and development in academia, and how to develop leadership in academia. At an individual level, training skills are provided to graduates and undergraduates of both engineering and management graduates, to make them industry- ready - globally. For corporates, it is more on learning and development initiatives, organisational development and talent management. The other focus is faculty training. We have trained the faculty in India and Singapore several top business schools. We train professors in engineering colleges like we have done it in Odisha for NIT, Rourkela and in Maharashtra for Government College of Engineering (GCOE) in Amravati.
When I came to Singapore in 2002, it was for a job in business development with HCL Technologies. My wife came with P&G and we thought it would be a good platform to launch our careers for USA. However, in 2002-2003 we saw a big downturn in US market, so we thought why not make a career in Asia. Singapore is actually the gateway to Asia, and has been a SMART city for over 20 years. The primary businesses in Singapore are finance, tourism, trade and shipping. Today, 6000 multi-national companies (MNCs) have their corporate headquarters in Singapore and people of over 50 nationalities reside here. There are now world class universities in Singapore like NTU, NUS and SMU. When I landed in Singapore it was different and was more Asia-focused; now it is globally focused. Most of the Indian migrants are from Tamil Nadu (they comprise 7-8 per cent of the population) and so Tamil is an official language in Singapore; the other three are Mandarin, English and Malay. We have the Singapore-Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI), which initiates and supports a lot of business activities, especially for Indians in business. The transit population of Indians who come to Singapore for work now constitute a very sizable segment. Indians come on expat assignments for two to three years and there is a significant presence of floating population of transit Indians. Hence, you will find schools in Singapore with CBSE or ICSE curriculum. There are now three major schools - National Public School, Global Indian International School and Delhi Public School, which are offering the two curriculums. You have Indian food, restaurants, culture and even, temples. We have lot of traders who are from the Indian community and they have made it big in business. IT professionals and those working in other sectors are mostly young generation Indians. About 80 percent of transit Indians who we typically see (I don’t have exact data to put across) are less than 45 years of age. Something important which I noted and must highlight - when Indians land in Singapore they adapt to its culture of cleanliness and discipline very fast. An Indian may be quite unruly in India, but as soon as he or she lands in Singapore he stops all that and gets very disciplined. It’s probably the environment in Singapore which has a big role to play.
Every Indian is a thinker; very few Indians can execute a plan or in this case, a rule. We love to think and because there is so much thinking happening there is chaos. When everyone starts thinking and starts acting at freewill – there is chaos. When there is a rule in India, Indians don’t tend to follow it; they love to think how to break the rule. On the other hand, Singaporeans are so process driven that, it has become a culture. Now, when you follow a process you don’t have to think, if you start thinking you have a serious challenge. So how to execute simple processes (without thinking), is what Indians need to do. Singapore has grown because people at the top think and others execute and follow it without questioning it. Thinkers and executers both are adept at their job.
I goofed up big time in Singapore, after which I understood the value of time. I was in sales with HCL Technologies in 2002 and had fixed an appointment with the Vice President of Citibank. I started for the meeting as planned but got caught up in a traffic rush, so I called up the customer and said that I would be late by 15 minutes and she said okay, come in. I had a half an hour of a very fruitful meeting. However, after that, I never got any follow up meeting appointment because I was late. Losing a customer like Citibank and being pulled up by your boss for this and not getting a meeting with that customer again was tremendous humiliation but a great learning. People are typically before time in office and especially with customers, they are extremely punctual. I learnt it the hard way.
"When there is a rule in india, indians don’t tend to follow it; they love to think how to break the rule. singaporeans are so process driven that, it has become a culture. People at the top think;others execute and follow those rules"
So the government is coming up with innovative ways for managing this but still transport is a challenge. When I came here, Singapore had a population of 4.5 million and now it is 5.5 million. So, the government is finding ways to manage the population and get into the next level in terms of transport and infrastructure.
In India, we think India-centric and the world has become global-centric. I have seen most business plans in top IIMs, IITs and NITs purely focused on India and the Indian consumer. Till graduation, we don’t know about world’s needs. We are not even bothered or focused on world’s needs. We are generally unaware of what the Chinese, Korean, or Japanese cultures are or ignorant about how to do business with let’s say, Taiwan, Malaysia, or Australia. We are taught to do business the Indian way; you can call it jugaad. In Singapore, every neighbourhood and school classroom has people and students from multiple nationalities. So you grow up appreciating people from different cultures and nations. What Singapore academic courses and learning environment teach you, is Asian plus western culture in theory and practice. Like, my daughter is in class two, and she recently went to Taiwan for immersion and training for six days with her friends. For example, my elder daughter has been to Malaysia and Indonesia with her friends which has helped her understand the perspective of a very diverse cultural environment, nationality and language, so she is trained not to feel uncomfortable anywhere. Indians find it very tough to work with the Chinese, but Indians who have grown-up in Singapore don’t find it tough to work with a Chinese or a Korean. So a clear learning for a young Corporate Manager from India is appreciation of culture and business in Asia with a global focus. In Corporate Gurukul, we have a programme called `Global Immersion Programme’. We conduct it in Singapore because it is a truly global city in all sense - multi-racial, multi-cultural and represented by so many nationalities.
An indian may be quite unruly in india, but as soon as he lands in singapore he gets very disciplined. it’s probably the environment in singapore which has a big role to play
To achieve ‘Make in India’ initiative , Indians need to understand the ‘global needs’. During education, the first way to achieve that is - get global experts to India to interact with students, faculty and professionals. The second way is to make them travel abroad frequently to immerse and understand the needs of countries and their people. Once we understand the needs of the world, we need to develop the relevant skills. The current system of education, culture, environment and above all attitude is a big challenge to the vision of ‘Make in India’
In the last four months I have visited nine states, met three chief ministers, and nine education ministers and in our conversation, they have been worried. States and the centre are worried at their own levels. The worry is not so much about the problems, the worry is about the attitude or lack of initiative towards problem solving. Everybody expects the government to solve all problems. The social fabric has to change for India to survive otherwise India may not survive - because there is so much competition among nations. In addition, the Government of India machinery, I feel, is not able to match up to international standards, again because of general indifferent attitude of people in the system. Even if you build world class infrastructures and processes, it won’t be followed or maintained, primarily because of the attitude of people – inside and outside the system. I must mention here that Indians are super smart people. We have probably the best of brains in the world but the ‘attitude’ is a challenge and needs to change. We want to support Make in India, it is a challenge more in the mind-set of Indians than in the skills. Once that changes things will happen, because we are extremely sharp, hard working and where ever we go have made big difference to that company and to that nation. Corporate Gurukul was one of the few skill development companies from Singapore to be invited to participate in official Singapore Delegation to ‘Vibrant Gujarat’. All our programmes, our initiatives around global immersions, learning and development are focused on changing this ‘attitude’ of Indians towards the rest of the world – through experience and exposure. Today the world is a global village, anybody can take a job in any part of the world. So every Indian must develop the right attitude and skill sets to be a GLOBAL RESOURCE.
By Vinita Deshmukh
