EUROPE STILL SEES INDIA THROUGH OLD CLICHES Every entrepreneur can learn from ... of social enterprises
By Dr Eugenio Viassa Monteiro [email protected] Goa-born Dr. Monteiro is co-founder of the prominent Portuguese business school, the AESE. The author of several articles published in Lisbon's leading newspapers, he has also co-authored many case studies, particularly in the field of social entrepreneurship. Dr. Monteiro explains his new book titled 'The Rise of India'. -------------------------------------------------------- PEOPLE IN the part of Europe I'm familiar with know very little about India. There are only some old cliches, and they see the country in terms of poverty, disasters, sadhus and the like. The idea was to make people think in a different way, to get them to know more about the New India, the India of IT, R&D, satellites, along with the India that still remains very poor because of the colonial exploitation and much more because of the ideas of 'Indian socialism'. One wanted to showcase the new India, where the free enterprise has made miracles -- creating jobs, wealth, better living conditions, good educational institutions, and good hospitals. The book touches on diverse aspects. Firstly, there are some aspects of history of India, of its culture, religion, its age-old science, astronomy, and medicine that existed when the West had not still dreamt on it. Then, there's also a section showcasing the vivacity of Indian entrepreneurs, who have been inventing very creative solutions in a variety of fields... While doing so, they have also been notching up huge successes that India needs to be proud of. These need to be taken as a platform on which to do more, to do much better and in more efficient ways. The book exudes optimism, but not just a childish idealism, I would think. All my thoughts are based of achievements and facts. And mainly what can be done much better when one is more organized to be more efficient. When our energies aren't lost to overcome the burden of bureaucracy and deeply rooted political or bureaucratic corruption. In these matters too, things will change soon. This is my hope, as I see in civil society a strong reaction to the unfair and unjust treatment of the poor and the voiceless. This book is a vision of what India could soon become, based on all the capabilities people here have. They are very good, high-class entrepreneurs, able to find imaginative solutions to almost every problem. People who are used to working hard, are orderly and disciplined. They have good educational institutions, which can be improved with education available to all fit to be admitted. This can give a great boost to the Indian people. Significant success has been attained after years of abject poverty. After colonialism, 43 years were wasted in implementing ideas of Indian socialism. Now, people have learnt that there is no more time for ideologies to hurt the people. Simultaneously, there must be a decisive fight against corruption too. SOCIAL ENTERPRISES Cases of social enterprises which I studied in South Asia tell us that there is an enormous potential to take advantage of. It is necessary to free the imagination and the will to do. Profit-making needs to go side-by-side with creating jobs, creating high quality products, and philanthropy. One impressive case to me was about the Grameen Bank, which has been promoting micro-credits in Bangladesh. Once Prof. Yunus was asked by a journalist about the most significant micro-loan he had offered. He said: a lady used to beg. I met her very often and often told her to take a micro-loan to start a small business. But she declined, out of the fear of not being able to repay. One day however she accepted, but only half of the amount Prof. Yunus proposed. Sometime later, Prof Yunus met her and enquired how the business was doing. She replied with a story. Prof Yunus narrated it: "I went to sell my items to a house where I used to beg. From inside a voice told me: 'Come another day, not today.' I insisted: 'I have not coming to beg, but to sell some items.' You know, this was the first time in my life that I was invited to enter and take a seat!" Also very impressive is the Dr. Venkataswamy case of founding the Aravind Eye Care System in Madurai. It now has grown into five big hospitals and is managing four more. Only 35% of the patients pay their bill. The remaining 65% don't pay anything, being poor. Yet, the whole operation is profitable, as the process and the people tend to be highly efficient! The Dr. Devi Shetty case is also a great revolution in healthcare delivery, one that will have an impact on the whole world. It involves a highly technical and complex area of heart surgery, but is now moving into other complex fields of healthcare. I co-wrote a case study on The Jaipur Foot, for making and adjusting prosthesis to those to lost their legs or feet. Each prosthesis costs only $35. Those who are very poor don't pay anything, and yet get a solution. The Barefoot College is an interesting case. It teaches rural people to harvest rain water, maintain photo-voltaic cells, and thus have power to run schools for children. Every entrepreneur can learn from some of the bright ideas of social enterprises. You'll find social entrepreneurs offering solutions to the daily problems of the poor that are absolutely superb. Sometimes, they start on a small scale, that grows into a world class organisation, taking care of thousands or millions and in a self-sustaining manner. These solutions are both provoking and inspiring to everyone -- specially to Executive MBA students, who are younger, have a great push and a strong desire to do good and do well. Unfortunately, Europe in general still feels it is the centre of the world. It needs to see, and know, that things are changing. It must learn to work with India -- to collaborate, buy, sell, and deal with humility, for the benefit of all involved. Increasingly, bright people are realizing that. Many firms are coming to India, as US firms have already been doing for a long time now. I was amazed to see that IBM has over 100,000 persons working in India! This is a good example, of how Indian skills and talent can benefit all. AN ENGINEER, AND WRITING I'm an engineer, having undertaken a fair share of initiatives. Including being one of the founders of the AESE Business School, with a variety of programs for executives, including an Executive MBA. This one integrates three international work-weeks -- one of which is in India, at the IIM-Ahmedabad. This means, every year a group of 45 persons come to Ahmedabad to join classes and interact with their counterparts and with Indian entrepreneurs. Incidentally, I have a special interest in writing, mostly on India and India-related themes; maybe this is a taste inherited from my father Constancio Roque Monteiro, who was poet and a good writer. He wrote a biography of Fr. José Vaz 'A Epopeia do Escravo', and two books of poems, 'Cantico Azul' and 'Galeno tem Coração', besides many stories as 'Florinhas da minha Aldeia', articles he published on Vauradeancho Ixtt and A Vida and other Goan newspapers of another era. When a Goan lives far from Goa, his dreams and imagination see Goa as a great place. I always thought of coming back to Goa or at least somehow contributing to improve the conditions of life in Goa -- in fields like education, healthcare, the creation of jobs. Goa, and later India, were in my heart but I was too worried about why India was not taking off and had instead sunk in the stupidities of ideologies and other problems. Everyone who succeeded was looked at with a certain dose of disdain or mistrust; that maybe is the cause why in Goa there were so few entrepreneurs. Hopefully things are changing fast. Manmohan Singh deserves praise for this. This book was originally written in Portuguese. I'm Goan, was born in Goa and studied in the Liceu of Goa till the age of 17. Then I went to Portugal in October 1961, to study engineering in the Instituto Superior Tecnico. My mastery of the Portuguese language is quite good, which is why the book was originally published in Portuguese. After that, two business schools prompted its translation into Spanish, in an edition of 5,500 copies. Now, the English version is ready for release. In both Spain and Portugal, the book was very well received. In Portugal, practically all the colleges of international relations made this book recommended reading. They also invite me to give several talks and lectures, on varied India-related matters. The book is helping the Portuguese people to see India in a new light. The AAPI-Associação de Amizade Portugal-India is trying to build that. Also, the IdEA-Instituto de Estudos Asiático from the AESE, under my direction, is trying to give greater importance to Asian Studies. Particularly in the case of India, a country with a growing intellectual output in the fields of science, technology, literature, films and arts. Closer relations will benefit the Iberian countries. Nowadays, in Portugal, India is watched with great admiration for the trajectory it has undertaken. People are amazed by the achievements of firms in IT and every success India is notching up. What we say is sometimes lost immediately. What you write remains for a long time. So, about 3,000 persons receive the newsletter that I put out via the Internet; this is not to pretend that everyone reads all of it. Many will read the titles of the items included and some or the other news they find relevant. In several cases, I was asked to share this newsletter with the websites of other institutions in some way linked in some way with India. The newsletter is done by me with the contribution of other editorial members. Very often it is a copy-and-paste job. But you need to make a decent selection of India-related developments. This is based on some personal criteria, placing greater emphasis on what is positive and optimistic rather than on the negative and the degrading. Relevance is given to items that could be important to India: new ideas in agriculture, achievements in medicine, the discovery of new drugs or agreements for R&D with Western companies which have more money to spend, and so on. --------------------------------------------------------- Eugenio Monteiro can be contacted via email [email protected] 'The Rise of India' is to be released at Xavier Centre for Historical Research-Porvorim on July 29, 2011 (Friday) at 5 p.m. at a function open to the public.
