Students must leverage innovations, technologies to fight recession: Rajan Bharti Mittal, MD, Bharti Enterprises

Mr Mittal was addressing the 3rd annual convocation of Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida, on April 9, 2009.

While urging students not to get discouraged by the slowdown and shrinking job markets, Mr Mittal said, The dark clouds are purely temporary and will be fading soon. Students who are graduating at this juncture have tremendous opportunities in terms of new unexplored sectors in the management field. These students have benefits of scientific innovations and technological developments, so they must extract best out of these developments to hone their skills and fight current recession.

Advising students to be attentive in current times, Mr Mittal said, Business leaders, and management graduates who are supposed to start their corporate journey need to respond to the current situation carefully. This is a time to pause, rethink and regroup. The immediate focus should be on the basics of managing business, such as lowering the break-even point, bolstering cash flow and cutting the flab.

The industry has already seen three terrible quarters, and it will remain in a bad shape for next six to seven quarters. But, after that we will see a radical development in the whole structure, owing to the hard efforts business community is putting in the downturn period right now. Most of the economic experts and management leaders are talking about four to five percent growth rate but my prediction is that India will cross this growth figure, he said.
India will emerge as a hub for the investment as the whole world has turned to countries like India and China. But we have to be realistic about our strengths and weaknesses. Our 56% of GDP comes from the service-centric industries in India, which is the result of growing service industry. We are a young country with lot of potentials. India has a growth-led domestic economy, and this is the reason why we are impacted less as compared to many developed countries. The current crisis has revealed the truth and consolidated Indias status as an emerging global superpower, concluded Mr Mittal.