IKEA is one of those iconic global brands that people either love or hate. Customers in Europe, where it has been operating for the longest time, love the cheap prices and the clean Scandinavian design sensibility. On the other hand, those who hate IKEA deride its cheap furniture and impossible to understand instructions for assembling…
Tag: India
Is India a Global Economic Superpower?
The Request for a Column Last month I received an urgent email from an Indian business magazine asking me to write an article on “India’s forward march as a Global Economic Superpower”. I wrote back: On your column, please excuse me as I do not agree with the premise of the title. I do not…
Is the ICICI Governance Problem Systemic?
The blog post on ICICI governance, despite appearing previously on the Bloomberg Quint website, was rather popular (30,000 views) when reposted on LinkedIn. Readers really engaged with it by offering several comments on how to improve corporate governance – Thank you. In this post, I would like to share some of the comments with my…
ICICI Bank: The Corporate Governance Problem of India Continues
I have previously written about the particular agency problem for promoter-led companies: protecting minority shareholders. Promoters have considerable leeway to siphon corporate resources away from the minority shareholders via skewed contracts with related companies (e.g., tunnelling profits to firms where the promoter shareholding is larger) and undeserving pecuniary benefits for promoters (e.g., paying for marriage…
Discovering the Second World: Mexico, Peru & Thailand
As a schoolboy, the terms first, second, and third world were in frequent use. The developed countries and Japan were then considered “first world” because of their political and economic dominance, while Africa, Asia, and Latin America were dubbed as “third world”. This categorization was never academically defensible, but it captured popular imagination. Since I…
In India, nothing is too much trouble
One of the remarkable things that strikes visitors, especially foreigners, about India is the warmth of the people one encounters. Individuals think nothing about dropping everything and going out of their way to help you without any expectation of reciprocity. They even get embarrassed if you so much as thank them for their generosity.
The Next #1 Economy in the World
With the growth in India, lots of interesting stories emerging on the India potential. The below link is from one of the many analysts who send out such reports, a prediction of India as the most populous and the highest GDP country in the world. Please only read the first page: http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/next-1-economy-world-70974#.VVra02Aqv8s Another story predicting…
Nirmalya Kumar 