Vision India 2020
By: Sramana Mitra
Published: February 3, 2010
Format: Paperback, 244 pages
ISBN-10: 1439269769
ISBN-13: 978-1439269763
Publisher: BookSurge Publishing
"For my model of development, it is the entrepreneurs, and the entrepreneurs alone, who wield the most potent weapons of mass reconstruction", writes leading Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur and strategic consultant Sramana Mitra, in her visionary and all encompassing book Vision India 2020. The author describes a series of fictional, yet very plausible and successful business enterprises in India, seen from the vantage point of ten years from now.
Sramana Mitra recognizes that India is widely regarded as the back office of the world. She also considers that reputation, and even the success achieved as a technology outsource location, to be limiting to India's overall growth potential. For Sramana Mitra, India must not only import technology, but must develop home grown technological advances, or be left behind in the wake of the global economy. At the same time, the author writes eloquently that Indian entrepreneurs must look beyond technology, and seek opportunities in other sectors including healthcare, entertainment, infrastructure, rural development, and lifestyle products. To demonstrate the viability of the potential growth of these industries, Sramana Mitra provides many fictional "case studies" of how Indian entrepreneurs can achieve success.
Sramana Mitra (photo left) understands entrepreneurship, from the start up phase, to strategic planning, to capital development, to a successful business venture. As Sramana Mitra points out clearly in the book, entrepreneurship and an Indian economy that rewards their business ventures, is the key to building India in the future. With huge gaps in wealth and opportunity between rural and urban India, and the expansive poverty of India's many slums, the need for new products and services including healthcare and infrastructure is critical. Entrepreneurship is vital to job creation, through new processes that will spur the growth of other independent business ventures. Through the suggestions made clear, and the business ideas presented in the book, India can move beyond a technology outsource location, and enter the twenty-first century as an entrepreneurial powerhouse.
For me, the power of the book is how Sramana Mitra presents her visionary future for India in a story based format. Instead of simply describing potential opportunities that exist fro proprietorships in the Subcontinent, the author brings her concepts to life in the form of potential business success stories. Through the vehicle of prophetic fiction, Sramana Mitra demonstrates the vast latent economic strength of India and the country's entrepreneurs. To achieve the goal of a more diverse and global class economy, the author takes the bold stance that India must move beyond being the back office of the world. While India may be indeed an outsourcing superpower, that growth is limited to what can be imported from elsewhere. What business can be placed in Indian back offices, can also be removed and placed elsewhere. A strong economy, built on a firm domestic entrepreneur foundation, will create a more robust and diverse India in 2020.
I highly recommend the thought provoking, and idea packed book Vision India 2020 by Sramana Mitra, to anyone seeking entrepreneurial ventures in India, far beyond technology outsourcing. The business ideas presented in the book represent only a tiny fraction of the massive potential, yet to be untapped, in the giant Indian economy.
Read the groundbreaking book Vision India 2020 by Sramana Mitra, and you will never look at India's business potential in the same way again. Instead of seeing India only as a location to outsource work, the country and its people as possessing many challenges and many opportunities. Those opportunities can and will be met through an increased emphasis on entrepreneurship, in many different industries. India will not be just about technology outsourcing in 2020, if and when Sramana Mitra's entrepreneurial dream becomes a reality.
