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Need global partnerships to become atmanirbhar, says Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw: Report

To attain self-reliance, Indian companies still need to harness innovation through international partnerships and collaborations, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has said.

December 03, 2020 / 01:23 PM IST
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon.

Being self-reliant without global partnerships and collaborations may not be possible whether it is India, China or the United States, Biocon Chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has said.

Stating that countries and economies were inter-dependent, Shaw told McKinsey, “Nationalism may be a natural response to COVID-19 but you cannot be insulated and think you can do it all.”

“The US, India, and China are all talking about being self-reliant, based on the belief that we have large domestic markets. Here we call it 'atmanirbhar'. What we do not realise is that the Indian market is not an ideal market. It’s not about numbers but the value of the market,” she said.

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Mazumdar-Shaw also said Indian companies might believe that they do not need anyone else because they have all the digital opportunities in India but “other parts of the world have much smarter technologies”.

“If we shut them off, we are going to end up with a very inefficient digital system. To attain self-reliance, Indian companies still need to harness innovation through international partnerships and collaborations,” she noted.

The Biocon chief said Asian companies could reap many benefits if they not only embrace but also truly understand digital innovation, noting that COVID-19 had been a “true inflection point”.

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“In India, e-pharmacies are becoming a reality and we see a lot of opportunities to use technology in daily life. This is a new opportunity, we need to leverage and build on that. We have to look at digital ways to reach customers, patients and prescribers,” she said.

Mazumdar-Shaw also stressed the need to be realistic in how far digital can reach and that the approach should be “thoughtful”.

Policy-wise more needed to be done to improve actual ease of doing business as companies talking of shifting away from China were bypassing India for countries with better regulations, she said.

“It takes a huge amount of time to get through regulations in India—unlike Vietnam, Thailand and even Malaysia, where the government has implemented very smart and agile business rules. We have to focus more on the actual ease of doing business instead of just rhetoric and sloganeering,” she said.

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Moneycontrol News
first published: Dec 3, 2020 01:23 pm

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