Discussions about India at Kellogg

Nation’s rapid economic growth suggests ‘unlimited potential,’ say experts at India Business Conference

By Aubrey Henretty

March 6, 2007 - By serendipity or cosmic design, the Kellogg School’s India Business Conference coincided with Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors, on March 3. Kellogg Dean Dipak C. Jain welcomed attendees with a remark on the appropriateness of the arrangement.

“You cannot pick a better day than this, the beginning of a new season,” he said, to discuss India’s “Unlimited Potential” — this year’s conference theme. However, he added, the distinguished business leaders, diplomats and academics had not gathered at the James L. Allen Center to predict the future.

“Anything you predict is going to turn out to be wrong, anyway,” said the dean. “More than prediction, we need to think in terms of anticipation.”

Promising economic numbers are among the data shaping such anticipation. Organizers of the student-run conference accented India’s spectacular commercial growth, currently expanding at more than 8 percent each year. (The Economist recently suggested this figure could surge into double digits in 2007, although researchers questioned the sustainability of such growth as the government tries to avoid inflationary pressures.) Such development has enormous future implications for domestic and multinational companies.

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