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Why India matters to the CEO of Microsoft

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MG Arun
MG ArunOct 01, 2014 | 13:12

Why India matters to the CEO of Microsoft

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is on a whirlwind tour of China and India since last Friday, meeting with Chinese authorities in Beijing on anti-monopoly investigations and later hopping to Hyderabad, the capital of his home state, and Mumbai. His final stopover in India is New Delhi on September 30.

The most striking aspect of the tour was that it coincided with a visit of PM Narendra Modi to the US. While Modi was wooing investors into his country to mend a faltering economy, Nadella was here, the first time after he took over from Steve Ballmer in February, to meet clients and associates, to build a stronger business for Microsoft in India.

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Nadella’s “mobile-first and cloud-first” mantra resonates well with India’s growth prospects in the mobile online space. In the past three years, the Indian e-commerce space grew 150 per cent, from $3.8 billion to $9.5 billion, estimates KPMG.

This growth is not restricted to desktops. More and more people are using their mobile phones to place orders from anything ranging from apparels to books to perishables such as fruits and vegetables.

India has the third largest online user base globally after China and the US, with 238.71 million Internet subscribers as of December 31, 2013, according to telecom regulator Trai.

A survey by Tata Communications reveals that 82 per cent of surveyed Indians admit to a "fear of missing out" when not connected to the Internet, the highest percentage globally. Likewise, more Indian companies are finding it cheaper and faster to work on the cloud, using the network of remote servers to store, manage and process data.

This forms an ideal ground for the $86 billion Microsoft, and Tirupati-born Nadella, 46, who advocates that the company’s goal, is to step up to provide applications and services that empower users across devices.

Mobility, according to him, is not about celebrating device, it’s about human involvement. “It’s about putting people at the centre,” he told CEOs in Mumbai on Monday, underscoring the opportunities to boost business by creating better people-centric models.

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While Nadella’s visit brings to focus what Indians can do on a global scale, it also opens the debate on what Indian technology companies can offer in the international arena. With Indian start-ups in the online space such as Snapdeal, Flipkart and Jabong creating waves with their disruptive business models, the setting is rife for existing companies to further their innovations to serve unmet needs.

Nadella is sympathetic towards the Indian IT industry, even if it has been largely driven by services, and not innovative products, because he believes that is creativity, too.

India may not be near producing another technology giant like Microsoft anytime soon. However, he says, the country has enough talent to generate several creative ideas that can lead to disruptive technologies and business models.

That should be a pat on the back for many.

 

Last updated: October 01, 2014 | 13:12
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