India ripe with growth opportunities, say industry experts

India is presently at the sweetest spot when it comes to demographic advantage. The Indian youth must tap this opportunity that comes only in a millennium.

Devendra Surana, Managing Director of Bhagyanagar India Limited, has said that it was important to make customers happy. “You should actually make them lazy,” he said, citing the examples of the success of e-commerce companies and cab-hailing firms.

Addressing a conference on Budget Insights 2017 here, Surana, also the FICCI-Telangana Chairperson, said the key to creating a successful business entity was “to dream like a poet and to act as a true merchant that brings out the last penny”. The conference was organised by BusinessLine in association with ICBM School of Business Excellence at the school’s premises at Attapur. The school offers two-year full-time PG Diploma in Management courses.

The upcoming Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime is expected to remove hurdles in inter-State tax matters it heralds a uniform structure across the country. “It will open up a single market and help the businesses scale up their operations,” Devendra said.

He hoped that the new tax regime would result in reduction of transaction costs and make businesses more efficient.

Dwelling on the broad contours of the Union Budget for 2017-18, he said the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has done well by reducing the revenue deficit and making allocations for infrastructure and rural development. However, he added that the manufacturing sector did not get its due.

Murali Bukkapatnam, serial entrepreneur and Chairman of Volksy Technologies, felt the Budget should have done something to encourage start-ups by incentivising them to hire good talent. He felt the Centre should have come out with a better stimulus package to the economy as the Budget came after demonetisation.

He said plain ideas didn’t mean anything if they weren’t put into implementation. Citing the example of Uber, he said entrepreneurs had to work very hard on products and services so that they could create strong entry barriers for other players.

Mamata Vegunta, Director (HR) of Invesco, Hyderabad, said India was at the cusp of reaping benefits from the demographic dividend as the number of people in the productive age group was going to grow in the next 30 years, while that of the developed countries had stopped growing.

“Walls are being built (around nations) and walls are getting stronger. You need to check around where the opportunities are. The Budget seeks to address this part by focussing on skilling initiatives,” she said.

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