This was a startling news for me – India being one of the friendliest countries for Entrepreneurs and having some of the best cultures in the world for people to start a new business.
We have written numerous articles on this blog earlier, but all of them were about how environment in India is not conducive for entrepreneurship. But these survey findings are a bit of a surprise.
Survey Findings
The survey findings are based on poll taken by more than 24000 people in 24 countries.
Indonesia was voted as the most friendly country for entrepreneurs with over 85% saying that it is the most favourable country for innovation and creativity. 75% of people in USA & China thought same about their country. Indian came in at 4th with 67% of respondents felling the same.
India was also ranked 4th on the entrepreneur-friendly index in the world with a score of 2.73. Indonesia ranked highest (2.81) on the index with US coming in at close 2nd. In Asian region all participating countries except Pakistan (2.35) ranked below the global average (2.49).
When it comes to starting a new business, most countries felt that there are barriers which could be removed to make the process easier. 72% Indian think that there are barriers, while in Indonesia 69% felt the same. However, more Chinese (76%) felt that it tougher to start a business in their country.
There are many other interesting findings which essentially show that India does have a good entrepreneurship culture. Check out the entire report pdf where you can find how India ranks on other parameters as well.
What do you think? Does India really have such good entrepreneurship culture – My personal opinion is –NO. What do you think ?
Not At ALL.
Not At ALL.
thnk on ths frnds..its already too late…lets move.
Our real threat is China, both economically & geographically, they are far ahead in military strength by us. One of their top military official said in an interview refering to India, “…why to invade in a day, when you can acquire the land 1 inch every day…”
China has been cutting off our legs by the means of cheap products in every field. Our small scale industries are almost out of site. Those closed down have turned big time importers of chinese products or shifted to stock trading, etc. Day by day the next generation is getting involved only in trading business. The manufacturing units are being run only by the extreme biggies. Thus wiping out labours job of the factories. The skill labours have no option but to get into infrastructure jobs only, the same will be minimized by hi-tech machinerires.
It is high time we stop using chinese products and concentrate on our own capabilities. Very tough to stop buying chinese items but every one needs to take that small step. Atleast check out, if a choice is available instead of a chinese product. Encourage INDIAN made products or atleast buy a imported product of a friendly country like France, Japan, Brazil, Russia, etc. Even U.S. relations are not reliable. Forget the politicians of our country, those culprits are going to do nothing about it, most of them are about to die of old age in sometime, but won’t stop looting the nation.
I am amused.
I think its much easier to start a business now than say in the 90s. I personally know of many 'normal' people starting businesses on their own. However I do think we don't have a good platform to help startups sustain themselves over a long period. Resources and expertise are needed to let that happen. But this is only my opinion.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13547505
When I saw the heading I was surprised. Yeah you are right. We had many articles in this blog about how enterprenuers are discouraged to do business in India.
But I can say 24,000 people is a very big poll for such conclusion which we have to respect.
However I can not help but give my views in this topic.
1) May be those 24,000 people may not include any one who know anything about Enron. If people have long memory Enron was the first major project which got stalled. In 90s the ruling govt gave licences to it (may be kickbacks were involved). When the opposition came to power, they demanded kickbacks again and when they were not paid, the earlier licences were cancelled on some flimsy grounds. By the time they got their kickbacks, the govts changed again and the delays continued. Finally due to the mounting financial burdens, the project collapsed and the forign company which collapsed abroad, the project was conveniently sold to local companies. All the grey issues were pushed under carpet and the new project was announced with renewed vigor and shown as a showpiece of how projects can be started in India. People with short memories hailed the start of the project. But this caused a big dent in the reputation of India then.
2) Posco, Mittal are the recent examples. Te announcements were very enthusiastic. 12 million tons of steel plants each!! when the total capacity of India (all 100 plants) is of 30 million tons. Every one thought India will jump into the big league. Then the usual red tape took over and the projects are where they were when they were announced. Actually the licences were issued with out checking the raw material availability. Announcing big projects was the name of the game then, as it is now.
3) Tata Nano in WB : I am not debating the ethics of the issue. The point I am making is the events aquired international importence and sent wrong message abroad. These are only few most famous examples. Thousands of such industries suffer the same fate.
I am not saying that all other forign countries are good. Every country has got red tape, hypocrasy, corruptions. Is it not the reason they conduct surveys to see which ones are best, worst etc?
I am not even sayoing that all projects are getting delayed in India.
What I have seen all these years is most of the industries which are suffering are those which are in brick and mortar sector like Steel, Cement, Power plant, roads, ports, chemicals etc which require land aquisitions (opportunity for local goons to benifit by forming opposition groups) local employment issues (local ruffians enroll their chamchas as locals where as real locals were shown middle finger), allotment of power, water, transport, communications (corruption, bribes), environmental issues (industrialists who know how to get around beaurocrasy to get licences even in protected areas like Anil Agarwals, Reddys will benifit while real projects like that of Coal India suffer)
What is thriving in India is virtual industries which need computers and people. IT companies require virtually no forest lands, no environmental clearances, no displacement of villages so they get licences easily. Also they are urban based so they get more media coverage in their swift starts.
May be the people who polled those 24,000 votes are from urban industries and naturally like India compared to other developing nations.
Also possible that may be other nations also have problems like what I said above and those who participated in the polls suffered in those countries and voted for India. Possible!!
Just my two paisa :)
Altaf mate, raise your stakes now. With so much inflation in the last few years, you are still stuck at two paisa. :-)
Hi Arun,
I agree with you. The answer is NO , no matter what research says. We are hampered on every stage by government, VCs, corruption. I can list many things like that . Having started my own business and failed, I believe that I can look at things with more detached perspective.
There are plenty of things we need to change before we can get into real entrepreneurship.