The following is an open letter authored by Vijay Mukhi, Chirag Unadkat and Andrew Larson. It has been sent to hundreds of business leaders in a variety of sectors within Indian industry and has already garnered wide scale support and interest.
April 22, 2008
Asia has always been the most significant part of the world in terms of population. The rise of Japan in the 1970’s and thereafter marked the beginning of the emergence of Asia as a leader in technology.
The continued rise of Japan in the world economy followed by the growth of the Asian tigers like Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore slowly tilted the balance of world economic power towards Asia. With the emergence of India and China as major world economies, this shift of economic power in favor of Asia has begun to reach new levels.
Asia has historically depended upon the West for a lot of things. In the early days of economic progress Asia looked to the West for technology. Later, Asia depended upon the West for markets in which to sell its products and services. Even today, world policies are determined more by the West than Asia.
This has lead to a situation where-in most of Asian nations talk to and conduct trade with the West more than they do amongst themselves. As Asians we need to start interacting with one other at least as much as, if not more than, we do with to the rest of the world.
We are geographically very close to each other. Culturally and in terms of our value systems we share many similarities. Our economic interests are, more often than not, aligned with and complimentary to one another. Our concerns for the world and ourselves are similar. There is a certainly lot to talk about, and many untapped opportunities to be developed.
So, whichever way we look at this – economically, socially, culturally, politically – it is in our best interest to begin engaging one another at a deeper level.
There have been some attempts at this in the past – ASEAN, SAARC, SAFTA and so on. These government level initiatives have their own utility and benefits but at the ground level, where business really happens, we need to build the means and opportunities for business people in Asian countries to start dialoging with each other. We need to get people from small, medium and large companies alike engaged in discussions that will ultimately allow them to form friendships, partnerships, alliances and build international business networks across Asia.
The first step to this is to get people from two countries talking. Eventually these dialogues will turn to discussions and others will join in these discussions to make way for regular conversations.
Our attempt here is to kick start this process by facilitating the initial dialogues. We hope to bring small, medium and large companies in Japan closer to companies of all sizes in India so that the two can explore the synergies that they have. We hope to bring individuals from India to Japan to meet and talk with individuals and companies so that the two sides can come to understand one another and learn to work together.
Both sides will benefit from such a dialog. Japan has long been a friend of India. Long before India rose to prominence as a provider of IT services (largely to the U.S. and then to Europe), she sourced technology from Japan. Most of the initial manufacturing of electronics, home appliances and automobiles in India was started in collaboration with Japanese companies.
Within India, Japan and Japanese companies are viewed as reliable partners who appreciate the belief and value systems of Indians. The Japanese are also viewed as good technology partners for mutual advancement and progress.
For Japan, the benefits of working with India are also many in number. India is, today, one of the biggest sources of manpower, technical expertise, physical resources, manufacturing resources and markets. Japanese companies can reduce their costs and achieve high quality levels by having manufacturing and service work done in India.
The tremendous technical expertise in India means that Indian companies and individuals can be used by Japanese businesses for research and development. The high level of honesty in India and a sound legal system ensure that the intellectual property rights of Japanese companies are protected when they work with India.
We hope you will join us in this effort to make a large continent like Asia a really small place in terms of the distance between the individuals in Asia.
We will face difficulties while doing this. The biggest problem will be language. A mechanism for communication will be the second major problem.
We have identified a means of overcoming these challenges in the form of a multi-lingual information and networking portal called e-chishiki.com (http://www.e-chishiki.com). This web site hopes to serve as a common platform for interaction between people in India and Japan, largely in their own native languages. The postings on the various forums on this site will be moderated and some of them translated from English to Japanese and vice-versa to facilitate better communication.
We are also getting a lot of people from India – representing Indian trade bodies like the Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC), Foundation of Information Security and Technology (FIST) and others to come to Japan to interact with Japanese businesses.
A significant number of prominent people and organizations from India, including those listed below have already joined in this initiative. We have people from Indian industry, academia, trade bodies and so on as part of this venture.
We hope to extend this list further to include many more Indian and Japanese names. Do let us know if you would like to be a part of this ground-breaking initiative what your areas of interest are.
On the web site we have already setup three different forums of interaction:
The first – The Business and Technology of e-Security – will focus on how companies should keep their e-assets secure using both management processes and technology.
The second – Strategic Outsourcing – will help participants share their needs, capabilities and experiences with outsourcing.
The third – Doing Business with Japan/India – is a more general forum that should be of interest to people who view Japan as a large potential market or wish to attract Japanese business and investment to India.
To participate in the forums on e-chishiki.com you will need to register. This will require just a minute of your time. You can also opt to receive notifications by e-mail whenever postings are made to forums of interest. To register, please visit https://www.e-chishiki.com/eng/user/register
Vijay Mukhi, Chirag Unadkat and Andrew Larson