Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan: The challenges in running a business successfully.

 

We have all been hearing about the growth of business in South Asia and the context of globalization that certainly cuts across many countries and our interest is in the focus with the American and South Asian businesses. Lots of the businesses that we have been hearing about would be centered around information technology and outsourcing and so on. Our ground floor speakers will address that. I am going to introduce our panelist in a minute and I just want to say my own interest in this is from my background as a faculty member teaching business and management so I look at it from management point of view. There are challenges to running any business and as South Asians, we might face political challenges but there are also challenges to managing business, whether it is managing a career so whether you are an entrepreneur or you are working at a corporation, there are challenges that exist and some of these might be political to us as South Asians. We also might have some advantages being South Asians.

 

So far our earlier speakers that talked about identity questions that we have as South Asians and that plays a role in the business world. So I had asked some of the speakers here to focus on challenges that South Asian women face in the world of business and we would have our speakers talk about their own very personal experiences and then we will also have one of our speakers talk in a more gentle tones about the software industry and opportunities that are available and we have another speaker speak about the Caribbean American experiences.

 

Let me introduce our speakers: To my left here is Silvia Peddar-Khanna, and she has been an entrepreneur for several years and she has successfully run a production business making house ware products and supplying them to designers. Her products have been sold at major retailers such as Fisher Eddy and Crate and Barrel. She has a bachelor of arts from India and an MBA from an American University.

 

Next to her is Prema Venkat who is VP of relationship management at Bank of America securities. She has a degree in electronics engineering from India and masters of business administrations from NYU. Actually, I know Prema pretty much from way back from when she was a student. Prior to her work at Bank of America, she has worked at Citibank, American Express, and she was also an entrepreneur for a little while in home furnishings.

 

Next we have Gita Naryanan who could not be with us today. I invited her to give us her comments. She is based in Atlanta, Gita Narayanan, so I am going to read out her commentary from a power point presentation and may be I will introduce her as I did on her comments. I wish that she could be here because she has been very active even in mentoring processes and programs in Atlanta working with women and business.

 

The next speaker is Professor Manawendra Roy. He is an Associate Professor of computer information systems at BMCC and he is also co-director of the teaching/learning center. He was telling me that he recently received a grant to develop programs on security, computer security and software security. He is also on the board of directors of information systems security association of New York and he’s going to talk about opportunities in the software industry. And to his left is Darrel Sukhdeo, who is a business coach and a writer too. He says that primarily he is involved in coaching businesses but he is glad that he has the time to write about business too and he is going to talk about the Caribbean American experiences.  

 

The last person to speak is Mr. Anumolu and will talk to us on a few tips on how to be successful as a business person and we will look forward to his comments at the end.

 

We will start with Silvia I had actually asked Silvia and Prema to center their comments around certain issues which I didn’t find key areas which might provide particular challenges as well as opportunities for South Asian women. One of these is a professional’s field and I asked them to address how they manage the process of assimilating into the American work life style. Where certain unheard of biases exist and the stereotypes which the earlier peoples had mentioned of what perceptions about South Asian women have endured in this process in the professional area. I also asked them to touch upon the first and last fix of particularly South Asian women with families how they handle this multi-tasking responsibility of being with the family as well as discharging the professional responsibilities; the men are quite fit in the mode of being the homemaker in the traditional way so they might have to craft a new biz and what extent do the spouses career, professional goals affect your own goals and finally I hope to ask them to share success strategies which might be of interest to people who are starting out in the world of business now. Starting with what influence they tried in choice, in career of profession and what strategies they have found that worked best for them and what they might suggest that should be avoided and if they had any mentors because it is being found that it is better for minorities having a mentor is a proven way to get ahead in an odd position in the business context. So did they have mentors and do they think it’s important for South Asian – South Asians and women, in particular, to create networks so sheer professional networks and earlier peoples have talked about organized efforts and finally what advice would be given to young, South Asian professionals starting out now. So both my speakers, Sylvia and Prema, had told me that they are quite used to making presentations in academic performance. You are very welcome to ask questions after the presentation. We’ll start with Sylvia.

 

Sylvia Pedder-Khanna:

 

Hello. Hi, I will give you a brief account of what I do and then I would like to open it up to you to ask me questions rather than me going through a lot of what Sambhavi said. She has given you the framework of the questions.

I have been in New York for about 15 years and when I came here, I did not want to join the corporate world. I had made that a formal choice mainly because I knew I wanted to start a family and I said I can’t have this job where I can’t be flexible with the children and work, but I still didn’t want to be the traditional mother, being at home and looking after the children so I decided that may be I should do something on my own and I had a friend who ran a leather business and he was a manufacturer and he had a lot of clients in America and I went to him and I said that I really want to learn the in’s and out’s about how to run a business; where you get the production done in one country and then try to sell it in another. So I joined him to learn all the in’s and out’s of these things like the banking and the documentation and how you present to clients and whatever shows you go to how to, you know, try and get a client. And after I thought, this is really easy after doing it with him, you know, I was there for like two months or three months and I was like, OK, I’m ready now to start off on my own and I go to a tradeshow at the Jacob Javitz Center and I decided that I’m going to bring in products from India and I had a range of samples of tableware and napkins and wooden products and I thought that they were really nice and I went in and presented and I went to do core calling at all the booths. I went into one booth and I said, you know, I can manufacture this particular product for you, you have this tableware and I have samples that look exactly the same and I have the factories and I had, done all that then the guy looked at me and he says, “Uh, no, you know, we buy from China”. So,

 

OK, so I go to the next guy and I said, you know, here’s my line, you know, I think we can make a great team and we can produce things and the guy asked me, “from where are you?” and I said I’m from India and he looked at me and he joined his hands and he says, “Please leave”. I said what do you mean please leave ! He says, “We’ve been so badly burned by Indian business people in this line that we just don’t want to deal with them anymore” and I found this, this was about ten years ago and I found that every time that I sort of approach people and they found out where the product was coming from, they were not very comfortable because unfortunately at least in the line that I was in which was house ware products, they had been pretty badly burned. They had ordered something and the quality was nothing what they had seen as a sample and they would land up with this product, which was really not what they had paid for. So it took me, you know, and I would go to the shows constantly and there are shows that happened four, five times a year and I would meet the same people over and over again and they always felt like Indian businessmen, I would say small time, I mean I’m not trying to make a generalization of smaller people like us, agents and things like that, would be here, one day and the next day when they look for us, we would never be seen, we’ve dumped them at some product, taken our money, and gone. But, I think over the course of time and I’ve seen this change is that they sort of gotten news to India and I think the Indian work ethics have really gone a long way and so, it’s been much easier now, as I say, I constantly go to them and they see me and, you know, workers started coming in and so I think being Indian, being in this particular field ten years ago was a big difficulty but I think it’s much easier now. How do I balance my career and my family? Well, I think it’s been a lot of adjustment in the long run and I have given up certain goals to adjust to it and pressures from family, of not being the perfect mother and not being there the whole time for the children sometimes comes up but on the whole, I think my family’s been very supportive to this whole role that I’ve taken on and my husband, too, has been, but, you know, always some issues that come up once in awhile that you feel like if I was not an Indian woman I think this may not have come up, you know, it would be much more accepting role for somebody besides a person coming from a more traditional country and a background but, I think we’ve grown up with it and it’s accepting and I’m very comfortable with it. For example, once I had a meeting in the morning and it was a breakfast meeting and my husband was at home with the children and I had to get them to school and then I get a call in the middle of the meeting and my husband, like, I can hear my daughter screaming in the background and she’s going totally crazy and my husband’s like, “I don’t know what to do with her” and I said I’m in the middle of a meeting and I can’t talk to you just now and, things like that and then you have to excuse yourself and it’s happened rarely but what I’m trying to say is that I think these are things if I, if I may not be an Indian, I would have told them, just take care of it yourself and put down the phone but I leave the meeting and go out and try to pacify my daughter and I come back into the meeting again, and try and balance these things and I think also that the business that I do, you get to know your buyers, it becomes a personal thing. A lot of the buyers are women that I’ve dealt with, so they are also, in somewhat of a position that I am in so they’re more understanding. So, it’s been OK on the whole to manage and I’ve done fairly well on this line and what I do and I guess I didn’t even tell you what I do. What I do is I go to wholesalers and designers and I get work from their artwork so they give me a drawing, for example, of a product that they want made. It could be in glass, in brass, in metals of different kinds, it could be fabrics, it could be wood, it could be anything. They just give me a piece of paper with a drawing on it that sort of thing and all specs on them, the colors and everything. I take that and I go back to India and I source the correct factories and I’ve gone in, over the past ten years, I’ve figured out and, you know, where I have to go for what in certain areas in the country where they are better in certain things and some are not and I have all these factories and I have a team of people that I have back there that work with me to find the right factory and we produce samples and we create a product from this drawing and present that and we take it right through from the drawing stage, right through till we bring it to the warehouse, clear it, ship it, everything and then they take it on and sell it so I don’t do the marketing side of it but I do the entire production site of the whole thing and that’s pretty much, you know, what the business is so there is a lot of flexibility and what I like the best is that I travel back and forth to India, so I take the children with me on some trips during the summer and the winters and I can travel and I feel like I have the best of all tours actually doing this type of work and you know when you work for yourself, there is the flexibility that you can take off and so as a mother of two children, I think that’s really vital for me as I said from the background that we come from, you know, it’s something you’re brought up with and it’s not difficult, it’s not easy to just shake that off and just say forget it. I’m in America and I’m going to just go out and work with nothing wrong in it and it’s just the way you’ve been brought up that gives you the guilt trip, sometimes, about this. So if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan: Before you open up the questions, what advice would you give any South Asian women who are looking to start their own business now?

 

Sylvia Pedder-Khanna: I think you have to evaluate what you want in life actually like anybody else and being a South Asian, I’m assuming that a lot of you have the same issues that I was brought up with like a woman’s role is first to be a good mother and, you know, look after your kids and everything else, you know, follow us that but I think there can be a balance and you have to choose your path and create that, sort of that, what should I say, that path for yourself that you can have a balance and I, I managed to find that it took me many years to do it and in the first three years of starting this work, I never got any work, really speaking, to talk about. It took me about three years to be able to find work so I think it’s just that you have to look inside and see how to figure this out. It’s difficult but you can find it. I feel I’ve found it, at least to a large extent.

 

Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan: Thank you, Sylvia. I think we’ll hold up questions till to end. We’ll move on. Prema is going to give you a different perspective on the carpet world that Sylvia said she didn’t want to get into so maybe some of you might feel motivated to join the carpet world after you think of it.

 

Prema Venkat: Yes, I’m already jealous of Sylvia. She says that she has the best of both worlds. I come from the flip side. My name is Prema Venkat and I work in Bank of America. I work in what’s called the Prime Brokerage Division there dealing with hedge funds, so it’s a very typical banking environment, you know, little buttons and pink shirts and dark suits and so their world is completely different and like Sylvia .What made me choose this? I don’t think I had much of an idea when I first came here other than the fact that I did not want to be a very technical engineer. My background is in engineering and so over the years, I’ve sort of figured out that I want to be in marketing and more so possibly in international marketing. So I went to NYU and I think that was one of the turning points in my life. In order to assimilate into the society, I think anybody especially a first generation immigrant, I firmly believe I have to go to school here. It just gives you the flavor and it gives you better friends that it’s a whole entry point into society that you may not have if you enter into a corporate life. A corporate life is, first of all, difficult to break if you don’t have a local degree. That’s one main reason but secondly, even if you get into that mall, then get in there. You’ve got a very meiotic view of everything because you just see what your corporation is about. You haven’t had that overall exposure to what, you know a college day or different perspective from different students and the college life can give you. So, I did my MBA in NYU and then it was a huge battle for me whether to – at that point, there was no battle because I didn’t have kids and I just decided that I’ll go into marketing and I went into Citibank where I did credit card strategies and marketing then I switched to American Express, similar field, and did a lot of market strategy and product development. I was in marketing, pure marketing.

 

Then came a stage in my life when I wanted to have kids and I debated if that thought of the work hour, you know, to Sylvia’s point, you have no flexibility to a large extent if you’re working for somebody especially in a huge corporation. So I took time off and decided on what Sylvia’s economy’s supposed to add and tried some. I had a friend who was at home while her husband was gone on business and we decided that we’ll do high-end home furnishing stuff from India and the two of us beat the pavement and then we were pretty good at trying to get people to return our calls and very happy with it but. One of us had fears into just about the time that we should’ve committed ourselves worth money wise as well as time wise and everything. Both of us decided to have a family so here you had two pregnant women and trying this side of business didn’t work so we wound up and had our babies and shortly, I had one more and so what I did was to get the balance between rearing young children and work, I took up a part-time job with a Middle Eastern firm so that I had the flexibility and time between work, when it’s not here, I’ll be there pretty much and just do things that I could with the babies at that point in time. That went on for about five years and then my daughter went to kindergarten, two years ago, and I got bored. I said this is not for me. I need some structure, I need some proper job so I went back to looking at carpet life because that’s about the only line that I knew, it provided a structure for me, see I think Sylvia’s is great but you need to be highly motivated to get your own act together and things and I admire her for that but for me, I need to be inside some spot, in an office at 9 o’clock in the morning and then to have something to do everyday and so, it was the only place to go back, but what I did do different was that I didn’t want to go back just simply to a marketing job. I, in the meantime had sort of looked around and read a lot about hedge fund industry which is exploring now and I expected it to be a huge profit generator so I sort of zoned in on banking and hedge fund and so on and so I went to the prime brokerage easy with all that. So I zoned in on that, picked my companies and I’ll be honest with you, when I went back I wasn’t the 20-year old out of fresh graduate, was a mother of two and out of corporate life and you know, in America if you don’t, if you’re not swimming with the flow, you’re either in or out. There’s no in-between in the corporate world. They don’t care if you took time off, you did that, that’s what you wanted, doesn’t matter. It’s looked on as a blip and I would go in and interview and some people would laugh at me literally, some of the management directors would be sitting across, and you know, what do you want to do? They’re like “I want to do this line”. “So What’s your experience?” “Zero”. Well, you know, where do you come from, what were you doing before a non-corporate life. So everything, everything was stacked against me. I think what got me through was just the fact that I had the wisdom of years to just say this is it, this is what I want and I’ll keep at it till I get it so I went on those interviews and I finally cracked the code and Bank of America. And I was lucky; I mean I did not just send out resumes, I knew it would have gone straight to the trash bin. There was no way anybody would look at you at that point so I just went through contacts and finally I got in here and here now and I’ve been there for about nearly 3 years and you know what, things are going great. But I would touch upon a few things to start a simulation process. I think myself to be a well educated, coordinated, and efficient person right, but you go in, into a corporate world and again you know, for those of you going in corporate America, especially as an Asian woman I would say one of the main things that I’ve learned is you’ve got to play the part. In other words, there’s no way that you can just sit there and say “well I’m efficient, I’ll do my job” and you know things will come to me. No, this country is built on people talking about their abilities, going out there and being, you know, literally marketing yourself. So I think that’s really important that I think in the corporate world, especially when you’re Asian, they can even judge you on your dress. You might say it’s wrong, you might say oh that’s not fair, I have the brains, I have this, I have that, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t play the part, ultimately it works against you. So if you’re the type who wants to wear a jeans and go, then I think go, Sylvia’s path and because that will be the way (audience laughs). No, I don’t mean it in a way; I’m just saying wear a suit.

 

Sylvia Pedder-Khanna: I’m not corporate America. I got up this morning and said “Should I wear a suit and I said, no I’m not going to wear a suit. I’m not corporate America…”

 

Prema Venkat: And that you have the flexibility to do what you want and what she is doing.

 

Sylvia Pedder-Khanna:I know Prema so it’s O.K.

 

Prema Venkat: We both know each other very well so it’s not, I’m not saying that it’s bad, all I’m saying is to Sylvia’s point be true to yourself. If that’s what you want, go that path. Don’t try to fit, and again the realities of life are there. I got bills to pay, I got the mortgage to pay and so on and so you grab what you get. But I would suggest those of you coming out of college especially just go with a full risk profile. In other words, just try everything that you want to try in your life because at 30, 40, you don’t have the luxury of that. At twenty you do. People are willing to take your mistakes, people are willing to look at you and say you’ve been attentive in jobs. Oh my god, ten different jobs in the last one year, they’ll laugh it off, say “Oh, it’s a twenty year old”. Forty-year old, “Oh my goodness, I don’t want to touch you” right? So, it’s, do the experiment at young, at that age, just see what you want and find your spot where you like and what you don’t like. Now one of the other things that got me through first of all, I think I was a firm believer in that integration process. You need to do something to get you in that corporate culture so you of course, do whatever it takes to assimilate into that process there. Obviously for a woman, I think right now I joke with my husband and my nanny is more important to me than my husband. (Audience laughs) They need to be there to run the house for the kids. There’s no shaking the fact that I feel horribly torn and guilty and I think my boss is very nice. I get home the latest is by six and for corporate America that’s a very good working hour. You know, there are people who work late nights and in investment banking and so on. I don’t think anybody could endure those hours if you have two young children. So I think you got to have a really good nanny, there’s no substitute for it seriously. You’ve got to get that peace set first and then you can go to work because comes to situations like Sylvia was saying, there’s no way they’re going to, you know, one time they’ll be a little sympathetic to you, next time may be as but third or fourth time you’ll be labeled as somebody who doesn’t focus on your work, who’s not driven, you know, who’s priorities are different, and so on and so forth. So I think that’s important on the home side and do I regret it, do I have everything perfect? No. I regret it many times when I can’t go to the school and be with my kids and cook some cookies or whatever that they’re doing. I’m torn, I’m always constantly torn between that and I think if you are asking what’s the most pressure I have. It’s probably that, time pressure. It’s not the work, it’s not, you know, all of us can do it. All of us can learn it, but I think it’s the time frame that gets me, you know, tired and weary. In terms of again, focusing on the corporate world, the things that I fixed upon is basically why the Asian women, I’m talking mainly Asians and why we are sort of excluded or don’t have the opportunities that we think should be all right. One, is I think the biggest piece is networking. We don’t do that, we think it’s a waste of time, you know, we just don’t do it. That’s one attitude. Second, we just don’t do it as good as the men. The men, you know, even going to, you know, just golf clubs, they exclude women, even strip clubs the (Audience chuckles) traders on my floor, they go, there are no women going there but you know what, next day the managing director at the associate could not ever have talked to slapping backs, you know talking about what they had on the outing because it breaks barriers. Women don’t get that chance and I’m telling you from, you know, from being there that those type of networking opportunities are there for men so it’s doubly hard for women and you got to prove yourself and work more in it if you want to rise. Now again, go back to the pay scales, the difference in pay scales. In 1963, I believe there was equal pay, laws and stuff was that passed through Congress. You know, when you come in 2006 it is 79 dollars to, I mean seventy nine cents to a dollar for a woman just, every dollar that a man gets paid, no matter what high profile job the woman is in, she gets paid seventy nine, at the best. I’m talking about the best. I’m sure it’s somewhere in the sixties or maybe seventies when you average it out. Why that? Again it’s a precession that, you know, your time is not going to be a hundred percent for the company and it’s much more for Asian women because they perceive us as being, again, to Sylvia’s point, more committed to the family. So I think for the women out there you’ve got to network, you’ve got to be there in formal networks, formal networks, whatever it takes. And then the other point is “break that stereotype”. Don’t go in, in the beginning and think that that you know I’m going to be what I want to be and let them accept it when I leave it. They’re going to leave it. Then I’m going to accept you. So play the part in the beginning, dress the part, play the part, walk the walk, you’ve got to do it if you want to go ahead in your life. If it’s not you, fine you, you know, leave that and go somewhere else and find something else that’s more tuned to you. And that the other reason we don’t make it to the high ranks is that the desire for flexibility that we want for the family and the independence that the women want to be with the family as opposed to the men. The men will just call the wives and say “Hey, I’m going to be late today”, that’s it, you know, and it’s accepted, taken care of. Women do it ten times, problems may be at home as you know (audience laughs) two times right? Then there’s lack of role models that I find very difficult. For somebody like me who went off the path and then came back, there’s nobody, you don’t have the straight mentoring that you, and you know, not that you need it at this stage, but you need it for different things, not for, you know, them to teach you something, but for you to have open doors like you may not open by yourself. In a corporate environment, that’s very important and again, it may not be as important otherwise. And it never lets you do reenter work when you take your time off. Like I said, I had to take a pay cut, a cut in my title, everything. And you might say “that’s wrong, oh my god, that’s unfair, this, this” you can grouch all you want, but that’s what it is, so you have to be prepared for these type of things, you know, just do what it takes. I, but I think that the passion, again, going back to their points is know what you want because I think when you have the passion, all of this will take you on the way side and it will take you further than you what you are. I’m a victim of not having passion. I mean at 18 you don’t know what the hell you want and I spent 5 years doing my engineering degree, now I don’t think I use it. But it gave me a platform to sort of launch off and I wish, actually I wouldn’t have done that, maybe now. You know, right now if I think about it. So just get to know what you want and then go out for it and that’s all I would say. (audience applauses)

 

Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan for Gita Narayanan

 

Thank you Prema! I just want to briefly view the part, the responses that my other speakers had given. Her name is Gita Narayanan and she’s the director of business marketing at Bell South. Prior to that, she had worked at UPS for a while, also in marketing. She has a MBA in marketing and a Ph.D. in sociology. As I said, I wish that she was here but she was actually to be located in Atlanta but she is deeply sorry about this and very much involved with mentoring programs. I thought it would interest you with her comments. These are the questions that I gave her about negotiating personal challenges, one of the responsibilities of bearing children I had talked to and this is her response: marketing is a demanding job and cannot be done single handed. To do it successfully, women have to develop an ecosystem that will help them succeed and the note is her husband and she discussed how they would go about juggling the demands of work and family. She’s a highly organized person and she’s also into corporate world and she said she had schedules for doing everything and she has to fit the roles. And her comment is that this probably won’t work for single parents who have to decide to find other ways to do things. But also similar to what Sylvia and Prema said is that the key here is for a woman to find her roles in terms to achieve her goals. My other question is about professional challenges and how she has fitted into the American work and cultural overlap so how would she assimilate into the American work life style and what is her perception of the world out there and her response is that I don’t think you need to assimilate 100 percent with American ways. My experience has been that as long as you’re understood and your English pronunciation is good, the expectation is not that you have to be behave like a white American. In fact there is an appreciation that we bring to the table.

The perception in the work place for being Indian is pretty positive. The stereotype is that we are very strong in math. The tendency is to put you in programming job. The negative perception that arises from communication skills are ways of constructing a sentence and delivery can sometimes come across as abrasive so they need to be overly sensitive to how we communicate and her view is after a certain level of management it is your communication and interpersonal skills that take you up and the other question was the challenges of making ties with the Asian community and with either the U.S or back in India or South Asia and she says I have not done a good job of making ties with the Asian community but her children do go back to visit grandparents and they have a very strong sense of their Indian lineage. One of the expectations of the community and one of the acceptance of being a professional woman, and it is what Sylvia and Prema said and she says I think the reaction from the community was good and all and not show that I would do it because I should tell you that Gita said, within the corporate world, all she done was she did not take time off. But the key again is what you believe, but if you believe it is the right thing and you have the support to do it, we have been brought up to be subservient and to do things without protest, if that makes me happy, then that’s not a bad thing, but if you’re stronger then you can pursue it. So the first step is a burst of confidence to think for themselves, believe and be passionate about what is important and she thinks that this is a fact that should and how Asian women think about themselves. These are the other questions and success strategies and she said she decided to pursue a career in corporate America even though she had a Ph.D. and that put her in an Academic track, but because I knew I needed a significant income to support the children and family my career would not enable me to achieve that goal, so she used her background in marketing to actually get a corporate job. Networking is critical because you need to be constantly tied into the next move as Mr. Anumolu as previously stated for success. My success has come largely from my mentor, Dean McStewarts and opening doors for me and he said that a woman should have a social/professional network ensure which she calls ecosystems. And now I will turn the floor over to Professor Manawendra Roy and he’s going to talk about the idealists.

 

Manawendra Roy:

I’m in the education business and education is between education and corporate business. Also, we don’t want to take drastic action in doing our job and going into business. So that’s the thing I’m going to cover and the second thing here I’m going to cover how we all know the big term now a days, “outsourcing” and we will see how we can do outsourcing even here within the USA. We can do in India and Southeast Asia. Since I’m in education, I want to show you some data we have collected so I’m going to use the PowerPoint. You don’t think I’m in the classroom so you don’t mind that way, so I’m going to go and show you some data using the PowerPoint presentation.

The information presented in the Power Point Presentation given below. (Professor Manawendra Roys talk is mostly based on the material given in his power point presentation.)

This is the data at this moment, what Southeast Asia or mostly India, a big player, in South Asia is playing. You see this data is based on the statistics in the US. So actually, we should be proud of this moment. One time, long back some reporter asked our Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru why the Indian people are doing far better out of the country than in the country. So his answer was the education and time.

Do You Know?

 

• 36% of NASA scientists are South Asians.
• 12% Scientists in USA are South Asians.
• 34% of Microsoft employees are South Asians.
• 28% of IBM employees are South Asians.
• 17% of INTEL scientists are South Asians.
• 13% of XEROX employees are South Asians.
• 38% of doctors are South Asians.
• In spite of 41 million people entering into the American workforce by 2010, 46 million college-educated baby boomers will retire by 2026.
• A shortage of skilled workers will grow to 5.3 million by 2010, and to 14 million by 2015.
• The labor (Skilled and unskilled) shortage will be 7 million in 2010,and 21 million by 2015.
• The most acute shortages will be for managers and skilled workers in high-tech jobs.

 

Facts

 

• The U.S. Department of Defense needs to hire more than 14,000 scientists and engineers every year for next two years.
• 56% of science and engineering graduates from American universities are foreign nationals.
• Fewer American students are entering science and tech fields.
• Two-thirds of the nation’s mathematics and science teaching force will retire by 2010.
• Only 36 percent of doctorate-level faculty in the U.S. are currently under 45 years of age. Nursing will grow by 27 percent by 2012.
• Physician assistant will increase nearly 50 percent.
• Physical and occupational therapists will grow by 35 percent.
• Home care worker will grow by 40 percent.
• Dental hygienists will increase by 43 percent.

 

Global CEO Survey Highlights

 

• Globalization plays a very positive impact on their organizations as told by 58 percent of CEOs.
• Globalization is not only about cost cutting but to find new customers and to service into the emerging-market countries like India, China, Brazil and Russia.
• The most resources are invested by CEOs in China (55 %), India (36 %), Brazil (33 %) and Russia (27 %)
• CEOs’ main areas: information technology (84%), organizational structure (79 %), and financial reporting and controls and customer sales and service (69 %).

 

Job market heads for layoffs, talent deficit: Causes

 

• Talent crunch due to aging population, declining birth rates, economic migration and globalization.
• Low fertility rates and rising life expectancy in developed countries.
• Technological advances and productivity gains will make many low-skill jobs redundant.
• Automation and increasing application of computer technology.

 

 

Why is India (South Asia) Important?

 

 

Opportunities:

 

• Politically

The world’s largest democracy.

Free press.

Independent Judiciary.

• Economically

Ranks number one in investor confidence.

One of the biggest economies today.

A free market economy (openness do business with anyone).

The world’s fastest growing economy by 2020.

• Demographically

Soon the most populous nation.

Most densely populated age group: 40 to 50 years.

The young have the ability to adapt, absorb, conceptualize and innovate

Educationally

Developed higher education.

World class Information Technology sector.

Culturally

The Most diversified.

Religiously

The most diversified.

Entertainment

The world’s largest movie industry.

 

Challenges

 

• The rules and business practices are in constant fluctuation.

• Frequent government and bureaucratic intervention.
• Cultural environment: National constitutions, laws, property rights and government are shaped by culture.
• Lack of infrastructure of roads, airports and real estate.
• Shortage of energy.
• Lack of law & orders and security.

 

Possible Solutions

 

• Long term investment strategies.

• The PRC (patient, relationship, cash) principle.
• Diversify investment policy.
• Shun militancy and extremism.
• Adopt the path of socio-economic uplift.
• Improve infrastructure of roads, airports and telecom.
• Promote peace and understanding between the East and the West

 

Reforms In Higher Education?

 

 

• Require reforms to counter unemployment and promote research.
• Require a quantitative and qualitative increase in higher education.
• Only six percent of youngsters (India) pursuing higher education, far less in South Asian and it should increase at least 3.5 percent.
• Possible solutions:

Foreign investment.

Collaboration with other institutions.

Collaboration with industries such as Tata consultancy services (TCS) with Stanford University in the critical area of data privacy.

More private universities.

 

Changing trends

 

• Body Shopping.

Supply of skilled personnel to abroad.

• BPO: Business Process Outsourcing.

Provide services from Asian countries to abroad.

• KPO: Knowledge Process Outsourcing.

Train highly skilled personnel and doing research.

A fast emerging sector.

• RPO: Recruitment Process Outsourcing.

Provide skilled personnel and taking the burden of the head-hunting business of the corporate sector.

 

References:

 

• The Brookings Institution Forums.
• The Aspen Institute.
• The Associated Press.
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• The RW3.
• Beyond Workforce 2020, Hudson Institute.
• Development Dimensions International.
• National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century.
• The Indian Knowledge Commission.
• The Hindustan times.
• The PWC.

 

These are the data I collected and I would like to answer if anybody has any questions at the end of the session.

(Audience applauses)

 

Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan:

 

And now Darrel Sukhdeo will tell us a little bit about the Caribbean-American Business scene.

 

Darrel Sukhdeo: In the interest of time, I want to be brief, however, I can and will provide a lot of information to AAARI and Dr. Tam. Anyone who needs additional information feel free to contact anyone and they can also contact me. I’ll begin by giving a brief overview of the Indo-Caribbean community. Indo-Caribbean, it is not a term we use in the Caribbean. In the Caribbean, we are Indians. We were initially brought to the Caribbean after emancipation, indenture labors with the promise of being returned, and that never happened for most of the Indians who were brought. This happened back in the 1830s, 40s and 50s. So now, the Indo-Caribbean communities here are basically twice immigrants and what has happened over the last twenty years is that the we have been packed in south Queens more than any other ethnic group. Twenty years ago there wasn’t a “Roty” shop in south Queens. Roty shop is basically an Indian or Caribbean food shop. Now, there are literally about four thousand “Roty” shops in south Queens, not to mention the rest of New York City and the tri-state area. I’m saying this to tell you the impact of the entrepreneur spirit of the Indo-Caribbean people. What has happened is that even though I’m talking about “Roty” shops that are not the biggest investment. The biggest investments have been in real estate and of course associate industries. Most families they object it when they first come to the U.S based on a property and quickly they realize that that is not the end of it all. Most families or I should say most successful families in Richmond Hill and South Queens own more than one property. The way they achieve this really is by renting out one floor which is uncommon for the rest of the South Asian community. Most of the rest of the South Asian community will come here, purchase a property and not think about renting a floor, near a floor. You know, in order to save more money and in order to pay off their loans more quickly. As a result of this, I’ll give you one interesting statistic Citibank on Liberty Avenue has the largest saving deposit resource of any Citibank in the entire country. Again, this has been achieved by people renting off one floor, very often renting out the basements so what has happened is that this has impacted south Queens, Richmond Hill, for example, twenty, twenty five years ago was predominantly Irish American and Italian American. They are almost non-existent there now. Now it’s either Indo-Caribbean and when I’m saying about Indo-Caribbean, I’m talking about people from Trinidad, Tobago, Guyana and a sprinkling from Surinam. There is no growing community of Sikh and other South Asians in Richmond Hill and south Queens. So if you go to south Queens, pretty much what you’re going to see is a lot of Indian like businesses and services and with regard to women, about thirty eight percent of businesses are owned or operated by Indo-Caribbean women and I’m speaking specifically of Liberty Avenue strip, which goes from Van Wyck Avenue to Woodhaven. I’m talking about roughly fifty blocks. That’s a major strip. Now it’s expanded into 101 Avenue, 103 Avenue, Atlantic Avenue because the demand is so huge now. One of the problems, or challenges faced by women in the Indo-Caribbean industry is that when a women become more successful than her husband (audience laughter) it suddenly becomes a problem. And you know, I can’t speak for the South Asian community, but in all community that is a huge problem, all right, most of the women business owners in our community are either divorced or single or separated. It’s not a statistic to be proud of, but nevertheless, it’s very much for me is non-existence. I have also found that we have pretty much created what I like to call a new America lifestyle. We have not necessarily as a community assimilated into this new American life style, new American dream so to speak to own a home or a business is very much prevailing. We have created our own unique thing. We in the Caribbean are very cultural, we hold onto our stuff very strongly, even first generation in the Caribbean. We are Indian and very much a bit part of it even if they hold us a part of the American cultural experience. So we have very much like most of the South Asian communities but I think more closely knit because we are such an enclave, we are not as expansive or wide as other South Asian communities. So what I have found in the last five or six years, pretty much my responsibility has been to build bridges between other South Asian communities with our communities. I have found that you know, now it’s a little better, but what most people really don’t understand what is in a Caribbean, you know who we are, how we became who we are, you know stuff like that. Over the years we have been more and more forceful in politics. We have several people for example, about three different individuals from all communities running for city office, none of whom won, by the way…that’s another story. Basically, if we were more united, someone would have won, but it didn’t, but more and more, and this is not a first generation initiative, more and more we’re being more political and this I have found are basically the immigrants doing it themselves. I found that most of all, you are not civic minded and that is one of the problems we are trying to address in our communities and I want to close by you talked about tips. I’m a business coach by profession and coaching business individuals and entrepreneurs’ for the last twenty years and one tip across the board for this one and any entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to get into business, and for anyone who is in business one of the things that I have found that creates more problems than anything else is the loss of peripheral vision within your organization. Small business owners, what happens are that you end up getting bogged down in day to day operations. You lose sight of your goals; lose sight of whets happening outside of your office. What’s happening with your industry, what’s happening with your competitors, you know, what other opportunities that you can’t see because your so bogged out. My tip, my first tip would be to really assign time in your daily business, your business day to focus on your overall long term goals and when I say focus, I mean really have a list of activities that contribute to your long term achievements and focus one hour a day or two hours every other day, and achieve that, because everybody gets bogged up especially small business. Each individual in many cases has a lot of demand on their time so that will be one that will be my tip to contribute to your tip section. Thank you! (Audience Applause)

Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan: Thank you very much! Well, all of you had a chance to hear our speakers and it would be good if we had five minutes for questions. Of course, you’re all welcome to come by the later and ask questions. So we can take a few questions.

 

Audience Speaker: I want to ask Darrel Sukhdeo about building bridges between Indo-Caribbean communities and other South Asian communities. Could you please explain a little more about that? In which way you are helping helpful to promote South Asian businesses? Thank you!

 

Darrel Sukhdeo: Well, first of all, ten years ago, the Indo-Caribbean community did not identify themselves as part of the South Asian community. That primarily was because of our own fault. We did not et oriented to the political or geographical scene that is going on within the tristate area. So I belong to an organization called “Agenda 21” which is primarily a group of Indo-Caribbean folks coming together to try to improve things for themselves to bring more government services to get more access to resources for the community. So about six or seven years ago I was assigned the responsibility of trying to reach out to all the South Asian communities, not just government agencies and services as well as other NGO’s. So basically what I have done, over the last six or seven years, was trying to attend events and be involve in it, but reach out to each of these organizations individually, talk about who we are, what we do and some of the services we need. I’ve also tried to for example, schedule walking tours of Richmond Hill. I’ve done it for students of Queens College and there are four different organizations like Waldorf. Talk about what we’re doing and what we need for example we have a youth law program to indicate to the youth about law, we have them coming to the school, we have them coming to the community center, we have to talk about how the youth should address the law and how it affects them. For example, when I say we’re building bridges, it’s that sort of thing that we are doing building bridges over the years.

 

Nehru Cherukupalli: My name is Nehru and I have a question for Ms. Sylvia and perhaps Prema might address the question rather than answer the question. “Behind every successful person there is always somebody else,” for example if there is a successful man and there’s a woman behind him, and you two being women and you feel that the reverse is also true like your husband’s provoke you in what you do.

 

Silvia Pedder-Khanna: In my case, definitely he has pushed me a lot actually, several times I wanted to just quit, because I just felt that the pressure was too much, with the children and the family commitments and family coming from India where they expected me you know oh you’re just walking for yourself you can just take two months off or whatever it is so I just said this can’t work, I’m just wasting my time then I wasn’t going any where with it for almost two years because nobody would give me an order because I was from India, I mean that was just a matter of fact, you know the way it was. He definitely pushed me and he was behind me and I also come from a family where we’ve been in the business line for over 40 years and so my father was also a very strong force behind me saying that I could do it and that I should not give up and that if I give up it was not even a good role model for my own children. You know so there were definitely two men who pushed me to do what I was doing and I have to give them credit.

 

Prema Venkat: I would agree with Sylvia. I think the common thread that you’ll find behind women who are in the work force, whether they’re an entrepreneur or corporate, you have to have that other partner support you, because without that you can’t do it. From simple things like if the nanny doesn’t turn up today at 2:45 the kids have to be picked up and if I can’t take time off because it’s corporate line, luckily he’s a self-employed person so he’ll just go and pick them up. So right from there but other than that the main thing is what Sylvia said, just being there mentally for you. I’m telling you it’s fine, just go and do it and no matter what the pressure from the family side is. So I think it’s really important and I would agree with her in my case as well, but for my husband being there I couldn’t have done it.

 

Sambhavi Lakshminarayanan: Any other questions? Then, we’ll thank the speakers and our guests. I hope you enjoyed the session. (Audience applause) Thank you.