‘Nowhere in the world can there be great firms without great universities’

“India is purely in the green category and gets an A or A+ of creating entrepreneurs.” “India needs to create jobs if it wants to maintain its rapid pace of GDP growth. It has enormous natural resources in terms of young population, particularly in the IT sector which has a bright future in India,” he said.

“Healthcare, energy, natural resources, any of these areas of constraints, I think IT and technology are big part of the solutions,” said Dell at an event, ‘Up close with Michael Dell,’ organised by Assocham. He said there was a need to set up world-class universities to attract top domestic and international companies that would look for educated and talented workforce while establishing their businesses across 100 smart cities being developed by the Union government.

“I think first you start with the universities because you don’t find anywhere in the world great companies without great universities,” Dell said. “Without great universities, it is really hard to have the basic talent to grow great businesses,” said Dell.

On digital evolution in India, Dell said that customers are rapidly realising that digital technology is advancing at such a pace that there are enormous opportunities to change one’s entire business including product creation, customer engagements, supply chain and digital enabling of the products. “This is the next wave of growth and certainly in the industry for companies in India,” he said.

“IT is moving from the back office to the front office and how you generate revenue, how you interact with your customers, how you create new products is changing because of the digital influence,” he said. It is really good to see the start of an innovation <g data-gr-id="55">eco-system</g> thriving now in India, Dell said.

On the growth of Dell India, he said, “I think there is no Dell without Dell India, India has rapidly become <g data-gr-id="65">third</g> largest market in the world to sell the products. We have been here for a decade now and we have about one in four people working in Dell India, so whether it is research and development, manufacturing, finance, IT, HR, sales, everything we do in Dell we do in India.”

On Dell going from being public to private, he said, “It is great to be private again. We were much more focused on <g data-gr-id="61">long-term</g> evolution of business and felt that this would be easier as a private company.”

“It has worked out very well as we have gained share in our client business, we have reached record share in our commercial client business, server business and we have been able to accelerate investments in R&D,” he added.

Earlier, in his address at the ASSOCHAM’s industry interaction, Dell India Managing Director and President Alok Ohrie said  that business in the country had grown from strength to strength at a phenomenal pace of 30 per cent year-on-year. “We have seen progress in a whole lot of areas, including our pitch into the end-to-end solutions space,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Indian-origin CEO of a US-based company said in Singapore that the “open-minded mentality” to share ideas and collaborate on innovations present in Silicon Valley must be introduced in India and other Asian markets to boost new start-ups and help them globalise their businesses. Work is in progress to bring across the thinking, innovation and investment from Silicon Valley to Asian markets through financial and technology hubs such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Singapore and Bangkok.

“There is a certain open-minded mentality among the people in Silicon Valley,” said Prashant Parekh, chief executive officer of <g data-gr-id="51">Spinta</g> Global Accelerator — a boutique startup accelerator based out of Silicon Valley. <g data-gr-id="52">Spinta</g> has a 500-strong team of technologists based in Pune and Bangalore. Besides funding, <g data-gr-id="53">Spinta</g> develops ideas and concept for start-ups and put a new technology on the market ahead of the competition.

Referring to the fast pace of development in Silicon Valley, Parekh said the open mindset for sharing ideas and innovations happening on a daily basis in the world’s biggest technology hub must be brought to Asian markets and help accelerate technology developments among new start-ups. 

“Everybody wants to emulate and aspire to be Silicon Valley, which is a Mecca for start-ups. Most of the innovations happen in Silicon Valley and they make it big because it is a state of mind,” he said.

“But in South East Asia, people are very protective of their ideas. They would not do anything unless a non-disclosure agreement is signed,” said Parekh here after organising a roadshow promoting <g data-gr-id="50">Spinta</g> expertise.