Bhubaneswar Is Open For Business
It is a privilege and an honor to welcome you to this symposium organized by Invest Bhubaneswar
, and I thought, it would help to take a step back in time to set the background.
I was born on 17th March 1974, the day which is celebrated worldwide as St. Patrick's Day. The westerners (place from where most of you hail today) have observed this day as a religious holiday for over a thousand years.When I passed my matriculation in 1990 the Mandal Commission was in full swing and in the name of caste; divide and rule had re-established its roots in India, long after the British left us, Bhubaneswar and Odisha saw violence for the first time is such a scale by the youth, post the fight to freedom. When I passed out my post graduation in management in 1997 the financial market was in doldrums with the NBFC scam of CRB just a year old and Harshad Mehta re-emerging from his shadows. When I built my first house in Bhubaneswar in 1999, the super cyclone devasted Bhubaneswar and Odisha was poorer by more than 20 years by this one incident. Post a decade of that debacle, when I started my first business in 2009 with the help of my wife in the field of pre primary education; Bhubaneswar City and for that matter Odisha was known for all the bad reasons you could think of be it the train accident of the famous Coromadel express which killed 12 and injured 100; delay in upcoming steel plants of Arcellor Mittal and Posco due to recession and land issues; or news on farmer suicides.
But then Bhubaneswar as a City and Odisha as a state saw winds of change. The youth diverted their energies to wage war against poverty using the tool of entrepreneurship; finance, angel funding, private equity are buzz words now and enablers for this entrepreneurship, Bhubaneswar is a surplus city be it power, water, clean air for which the world is fighting for; just the right ingredients for a entrepreneurs meal. The entrepreneurship storm has now taken Bhubaneswar under its wings and it is with this conviction that I speak before you intellectuals and visionaries.
Quite interestingly, the idea of globalization was embraced by Odisha politicians in power even before many leading businessmen of Odisha along with Government Officials, a 40 member team, the largest ever such delegation, went on a mission trip to US to connect with Silicon Valley, CA, USA the innovation capital of the world. And thus was born the Invest Bhubaneswar baby on 1st July 2010 at Palo Alto CA USA. The comfortable mediocrity of a closed economy actually served the limited ends of many entrenched beneficiaries. There was an active lobby that sought to tell the Odisha government that the Odisha economy should not be opened up; that Odisha industry was not ready for foreign competition. Once the path to opening up the economy was settled, there has been no reversal and despite the many anxieties in multiple sectors, Odisha has remained in the forefront of liberalisation and economic reforms.
Historically, we have been minerals and metals driven-indifferent State and only off late has the service setor and emerging sectors like IT and Clean Tech, Education and Tourism caught up with that pace. While the developed states like Gujurat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh has always taken a maximalist view, through centuries; Odias have had a minimalist view and there has been a make-do mindset. During the last decade, primarily driven by the pressure of urbanization and the need to build world-class infrastructure, we have seen the idea of Public, Private Peoples Partnership become a buzzword. It is a significant departure from the past and marks a sharp departure from the mindset of distrust during the initial period.
While every major infrastructural project today, from port to knowledge based projects like the Biotech Park symbolizing the new spirit, the government has been able to make progress in the privatization of management of state resources be it minerals resources or be it human resources.
Odisha, we know, is a state that is primarily seen as a poor state. Despite that, in most cases, we have seen a pro-business, pro-reform mindset. Part of the pro-reform mindset is related to the realization that the huge investments in building infrastructure and money required to keep the government afloat depend on taxes. As more business grows, it is the government that is laughing all the way to the bank. The state had three of the countrys largest tax payers. In the four years from 2005-06 to 2009-10, Bhubaneshwar region has topped the list in the country by registering a 146 per cent growth in collection of personal income tax. No one less than Reserve Bank of India has stated that Odisha command the First position in investments and no one less than World Bank has stated that Bhubaneswar is the third best city to do business. It is not easy to lobby this position for such a poor state and gives me the conviction that the State and City has finally arrived.
That said, the government has been acutely aware of the vote bank and the idea of economic reform and pro-business attitude has often been seen as anti-poor. We have seen the recent state assembly rock because of this perception and there remains substantive a rural-urban divide. There remains a larger issue: would government ever see its role merely beyond distributor of gains to being a participant in the creation of lasting economic value.
To brief you about
Invest Bhubaneswar and what it stands and if I can use a four letter word without being rude it means Public, Private Peoples Partnership.
People who have come to together in Invest Bhubaneswar are not looking for branding themselves actually it is the other way round. It is to brand Bhubaneswar City and for that matter Odisha state as an investment destination and give it a permanent position in the World Economic Map maybe that is the reason it is a true representative of Public Private Peoples Partnership.
The vision & strategy advisory team sat together for the first time in a leading hotel in Bhubaneswar to brainstorm, before the team proposed to depart to Palo Alto, as to what this group of people should seek. Thus came up the Invest Bhubaneswars Vision to play a catalytic role in linking multiple stakeholders across the globe and projecting Bhubaneswar as a stable and dependable partner and its mission to access more markets for Bhubaneswars Industries, and create B2B opportunities. It was decided that it would act on behalf of Industry (especially the startup enterprises) in making representations to State & National government and inter-governmental organizations. This it did by leveraging the team synergies to take Bhubaneswar and thereby Odishas National & International economic relations to new levels, across the entire spectrum of economic & social cooperation from agriculture to manufacturing, from services to knowledge based industries, from nanotechnology to FDI, from infrastructure to the setting up of SEZs, from promoting Tourism to preserving Heritage.
After tasting success in the first event at Palo Alto when the core working group of Invest Bhubaneswar met and planned for the second upcoming event in December; it was mutually agreed that each team member would bring one goal this group should achieve and the amalgamations of these would then encompass as to what this group would embark on. What emerged was deeper clarity as to what the group actually planned to achieve i.e. Providing facilitation services for investment into Bhubaneswar; Supporting progress of Bhubaneswars industry in trade, investment and related issues; Accessing technologies for development of industries in Bhubaneswar; Fostering professionalism and competitiveness; Providing policy inputs to the State & National Government; Promoting global connectivity for Bhubaneswar industries; Creating ground support for Bhubaneswar industries in different countries through linkages; Developing market access for Bhubaneswars exporters; Providing policy inputs to State and National government ; Building people-to-people contacts with countries to enhance trade; Promoting Brand Bhubaneswar and Brand Odisha; Networking facilitation services with like minded start up firms.
Before the big event however it was imperative to have a pilot walkthough of what to be prepared for and how to plan for it and what better than a talk with Venkesh Shukla the Founder Chairman of TiE Angels. This was planned in September as a precursor to the December event.
The success of the event, the turnout, the government interest, the entrepreneurs enthusiasm et all finally convinced us that the December event should be one of its kind nothing less than a Vibrant Gujurat but with a difference; this was to be for start ups, micro and small enterprises and industries. This meant trying to achieve what a big event achieves but with lesser financial resources at our disposal. It was decided that this event would be by entrepreneurs and for the entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs are strange creatures. First, entrepreneurs are valuable people who often carry deep insights that can spark others. Secondly, these people are sometimes solitary individuals, they need the right probes and there are even times that they do not know what they know. The third premise was that if we bring in an entrepreneur to talk to an entrepreneur, these great men and women feel secure to explore the deeps to bring out valuable insights.
There are three most frequently asked questions about the Invest Bhubaneswar Event: How do you choose the people you invite? How do you make it happen against all odds? And finally, how do you find the time?
When we conceptualised Invest Bhubaneswar, we thought of inclusion before we thought of exclusion. We told ourselves that it should evenly represent different sectors and demographic profiles. That is how if you notice, in the last one year, the event has had huge brand recall, from different small industries and business segments and of course covers both men and women, as well as for-profit and not-for-profit. We generally avoid people who are very big entreprenuers anyway because not many would-be entrepreneurs can relate to them so easily. So, lesser the limelight and more usable wisdom, better is the chance of being of value. That said, we also decided that at least twice in a year, we must seek entrepreneurial knowledge from unusual sources. That is how the Palo Alto event was conceptualized and we said if they cant come to us first lets go to them and then they sure would come in dozens and thanks to our firm belief the follow on event is even more successful.
But this did not come easy. Who we invite was planned months in advance and the Invest Bhubaneswar Core team and the Government of Odisha agreed on the guest list based on the learning potential the guest brings for our State and we take into account the level of participation sought. Hence Venktesh Shukla, who had been invited earlier for a talk was again invited for the big event as the forum felt that there was more to learn from him and we had just touched the tip of the iceberg and with him also came the whose who in the speaker and entreprenuer community be it Subroto Bagchi, Prabhu Goel, Prakash Bhalerao, Arindam Dutta and the likes. We wanted to be very sure that the person has respectability beyond just material success. Participants seldom come to the Event uninvited and the event was position as only on invitation to cater to people who were seriously invited apart from the student community where we did not want to bar the entry. This was done to avoid it become a political rally. Once we know who is coming, we prepared for every meeting. That of course is a given. We research the individual; sometimes imagining what is the most important aspect he can bring to the table. The time the person is with us, we are fellow entrepreneurs, we are in awe and fascination and we want to hear their tale of the journey just the way the headlines describes it. We are part sculptor and part photographer of words. The invited speakers let us sculpt their story from a maze of information and then we hold aloft something participants and entrepreneurs would love to behold and admire and learn from. Memorability is a key requirement for that process of learning. Hence, in every journey, we look for a story that serves as a hook. But the story is not the thing; it is the one or two pithy points of self-realization that stays in the mind. That is where the sculptor stops and the photographer of words takes over. A photographer must know the exact angle, lighting, and the object and in a fleeting moment pick the one that is of essence, one that must be brought in to sharp focus, cutting out everything else. The time we spend together, is in itself a journey. That journey involves the photographer.
Secondly, how do we make it happen against all odds? Folks who work as Core Members of Invest Bhubaneswar are some of the most innovative entrepreneurs in Odisha. They know the nuances, they are listening into the conversation through the lens and what you do not notice is the effort that goes in so that the picture on the page is real and picture perfect. There are times when in search of the business, we bring back a mountain and not the herb. In order to get the best, sometimes we have to suspend expectations that we must get the wisdom of the entrepreneur in a pre-packaged manner, in a finite session and we plan networking meeting over dinner and lunch. So, this is not about meeting tight deadlines. We get our work done sometimes months and weeks in advance so that like good wine and cheese; some of it can simply sit on your desk and ferment and age and become priceless.
And that brings us to the third most frequently asked question: where do we find the time? Usually, every meeting takes two hours of intense preparation and two hours of debating. Usually, it is over weekends that are devoted out of the limited family life available and that makes it 48 weekend-days in a year dedicated to the Invest Bhubaneswar cause.If we are sculptors and sometimes a photographer of words, our advisers are like the curator of the museum. They have their own way with the layout and broad vision and intimate us when we deviate.
Government of Odisha has now become an enabler rather than being hindrance to the growth of business. I would like to add here that government has to learn much from business as business should learn from government. I see the motive converging in the desire for growth and diverging where inclusive growth is concerned. Both government and business want to grow at rapid pace; business wants to grow wherever it can whereas for the government inclusive growth is the first watchword. Again for business efficiency or merit is the first that counts; for government representation of all is the watchword. To my mind its by learning from each other that we would grow and only small industries can give to Odisha what small business has given to Palo Alto or Silicon Valley.
The last ten years have witnessed not just a pro-business attitude by the Government of Odisha for the industry, but also there has been a huge shift from looking at overseas companies as the foreign ploy to inviting them as a partner in economic and, often, social development. This has led to major changes in policies favoring entrepreneurship among others. Today, a visit by Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Venktesh Shukla is taken as seriously by the Chief Ministers office in Bhubaneswar as that of a visiting State of Head.
A critical factor in the transformative relationship between the government and the startups, micro and small industries/enterprises has been the increasing role of a new breed of association like Invest Bhubaneswar. In the decades after independence, there have been several industry bodies that were seen as lobbying organizations and not as platforms for constructive policy dialogue; in short, thought leadership was not expected from them. That changed with the Invest Bhubaneswar as they brought a collaborative, constructive spirit of dialogue over debate for the startups, micro and small industries and enterprises and the government to work together. The issues voiced by them are heard seriously and more than lobbying for largesse and grievance redress, the government actually has upstream engagement with them in matters of policy.
The last decade have been marked by a very interesting departure from a past that has brought a new sense of social respectability for the Odisha businessman. In folklore, the businessman was always inconsequential, often portrayed as the greedy and heartless potbellied man. He was certainly, no hero. Today, the businessman is the new hero after iconic individual, like the Chief Minister, who is hugely respected by the society and this entrepreneurial class and is seen as regional role model. Government officials no longer see these people as defaulters but as people who have as much commitment to state building as anyone ever could.
Sometimes, we must surprise our speakers and visitors so that he or she gives me us the gem we are looking for. Usually, that surprise is a statement no one has ever made before. So when Venkatesh Shukla, an angel investor, encountered one of our home grown entrepreneurs involved in food processing (and exporting to Italy that too Olive Oil!!!), he told him Do not give us money. Give us technology, Give us machines, and Give us best practices.
The entrepreneurs of Odisha are not just looking for your money but more importantly learnings, knowhow and best practices, future reading of the market so that they can partner with international entrepreneurs for mutual gain as Odisha emerges from a sleeping state to an emerging hub.
Amidst all this, where do businesses share motives with the Odisha government and where do they diverge?
First of all, there is consensus on a Made-in-Odisha variety of economics. It is slower than what the protagonists would want but more surefooted than what the antagonists would like to see. As part of the overall umbrella of liberalization and reform, there is broad consensus on the development agenda and the idea of public-private cooperation.
Where do their motives diverge? The divergences relate to law reforms and policies, and judicial speed and for some, an overhang of corruption. Probity in the public space has eroded more sharply in the last
by: Devasis Sarangi
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