Reading Scott Anthony’s Innovation Notes from India over on the HBR blogs, I can’t help but noticing that India is about to face the growing pains that North America went through during the information technology revolution of the last few decades. Consider Scott’s points one-by-one:
India is a land of contrasts
Every revolution, from the telephone through television to the PC made North America a land of contrasts between the haves and the have nots. The culture of entire communities, cities, and counties, literally changed overnight. Take silicon valley for example. It was a new gold rush economy.
There are more people than jobs in India
That’s usually the case, and usually what propels a country to try anything to create jobs. And when unemployment hits a high, that’s what drives real innovation energy.
The innovation energy in India is tremendous
This is a key requirement for an innovation boom that is always accompanied by growing pains when a country tries to adapt to rapid change.
Indian companies might have it too easy
First-to-market companies always have it too easy during a new technology boom. As a result, they don’t innovate enough and that’s why the first-to-market companies are rarely the winners over the long term (and why what counts is being best-to-market).
There will be more SKS‘s in the coming years
Giving that developing economies are charging ahead, you can be quite sure there will be multiple micro-finance options in the years ahead as the rich try to take advantage of the boom and seize the opportunity, leading to more growing pains as the micro-financiers reach capacity when the companies they are financing require even more money to sustain their growth.