Bullish on India

If a list were to be compiled of global business leaders who were most bullish on India, then Steve Rohleder, COO of consultancy and outsourcing firm Accenture, would certainly be counted among the top. Such is the optimism of the man that despite acknowledging the talent crunch and infrastructure issues facing the country, he still thinks India is a fantastic place to do business and base outsourcing operations.

“Accenture’s Global Delivery Network that allows us to meet our customer needs from anywhere in the world has grown on the back of our involvement with India,” he acknowledges, adding that of the 75,000 employees in the network, 36,000 are based in Accenture’s five centres in India. “We hope to continue to grow apace in India,” Rohleder says, adding: “And we hope to become an employer of choice.”

With Indian industry spreading its wings into new countries, Rohleder believes that Accenture can help in that process as well as others. “We are doing some great work in the transportation sector (regarding the Air India-Indian merger and the Kingfisher -Air Deccan merger) and we are looking at other sectors as well,” Rohleder points out.

A word of caution: India’s biggest challenge, according to him, is not the rising rupee or the collapsing dollar but in closing the infrastructure gap. “The lack of infrastructure, roads, power, ports and mass-transport is a fundamental risk to the country’s future growth. But there is some progress happening on that front as well,” he says.