At the fifth and final roundtable of the Mint Leadership Dialogues-Season 2 in Mumbai, participants agreed that the global environment is not simply stabilizing or fragmenting – it is doing both and creating new places at the same time. The real question is how businesses interpret and act on this mix.
There was broad agreement that stability was not the defining feature of the present moment. As Khurshed Daruvala, Chairman, Sterling & Wilson, said: “So certainly not stabilization. Destabilization… and the opportunities presented globally by destabilization are huge…”
“Unpredictable and will remain so,” added Promeet Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director (MD), Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Limited. “What it brings home to us is that agility is a critical attribute of today’s companies.”
This emphasis on agility resonated across the table when Akshay Hiranandani, CEO, Serentica Renewables notes that businesses will increasingly be judged on “how agile you are to take care of threats and jump into opportunities.”
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Yet beneath this shared recognition of opportunity were sharper concerns about capital – particularly from the perspective of the financial system. Jairam Sridharan, MD and CEO, Piramal Finance pointed to a deeper dislocation: “India as a country has a capital deficit. So we need an inflow. What we are seeing is basically an outflow in every form.”
Sridharan also raised the issue of debt capital and warned that foreign debt capital has now become super risky. This left both capital and labor “at a disadvantage right now and it’s going to take Herculean efforts and a government doing a lot of heavy lifting to move us to a better place”.
All in all, the picture that emerged was not contradictory, but layered. As Vishal Sharma, CEO-chemicals, Godrej Industries Ltd summarized: “All three (are) happening together… the Western world… is fragmenting,” and Indian businesses need to actively identify where they fit. “We have to find our sweet spots, and those sweet spots are changing.
Pointing to the covid era, Amit Varma, founder and managing partner, Quadria Capital, said it is an opportunity for the alpha generation. “You have to go for it, stick to whatever your core thesis and strategy is and hopefully it will play out as we’ve seen in the past.”
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Nirmal Jain, founder of IIFL Group, added a macro lens: global trade and capital are not shrinking, but “getting redirected” and “redirected,” with India likely to benefit as these shifts settle. “Globalization is fragmenting, which is also creating new opportunities,” Jain said. “When the dust settles, countries like India will benefit greatly because we are the only major economy that is growing so fast.”
The range of opportunities – and the gap in supply
If indeed there was one area of convergence, it was in the scale of opportunities presented by the current crises.
“If you look at the infrastructure alone, it represents a multi-year, multi-trillion dollar opportunity,” said Vineet Mittal, Founder and Chairman, Avaada. “There are supply constraints throughout the value chain – from cables and steel structures to transformers, power electronics and other critical components.”
According to Mittal, the demand across the energy ecosystem is unprecedented. “We are also seeing strong international interest, with stakeholders from markets such as the US exploring whether India can supply critical equipment such as transformers or support project implementation,” he said.
Highlighting the scale of the upcoming opportunities, Daruvala said capital investment in next-generation infrastructure is significantly higher than in previous cycles. 1000MW the solar plant will stand ₹3,000 crore, but a 1,000 MW data center “would cost you ₹40,000-50,000 crore only electro mechanical work. If you add IT, it will happen ₹1,00,000 to 1,60,000 crore.”
The opportunity set is therefore not just broad – it is deep and capital intensive. Jain charted this across sectors: “electronics, semiconductors, renewables, defence, railways…infrastructure, specialty chemicals”, all pointing to a multi-sector investment cycle.
At the same time, the domestic market remains a critical anchor. India’s low per capita consumption creates a parallel opportunity. As Sharma noted, “per capita consumption is 1-10 to 1-50 of global averages… we need to look at these unsold opportunities”.
This dual dynamic – India as both a demand and supply story – was reinforced by Puncham Mukim, head, private equity and senior director, India, Everstone Capital, who said: “India is not just about demand, it’s also about supply… 60% of what the US imports in pharmaceuticals by volume comes from India… the shelves of Walgreens or Walmart will empty if you trade tariffs.” He added that this model could be extended to other sectors with new trade links.
Capital is available but not always usable
A notable shift in the discussion was the distinction between the availability of capital and its effective deployment.
From a market perspective, Amisha Vora, Chairman and MD, PL Capital Group pointed out that recent global flows favor high-risk, high-return bets. “India has been the worst performing market in the last four to six quarters. One of the key reasons … was that all the money was driving AI investments and AI stocks, mostly in the US, China and Taiwan.” India, on the other hand, has taken a more pragmatic route – especially in areas such as data centers.
“We said we can’t innovate like this… let’s accept… let’s become a data center country,” she said. But it also defines the return profile: “when you put in one rupee in 5 years, it becomes 2 rupees… the kind of business with 15-18% ROE.”
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She also pointed to the ongoing creation of opportunities based on the broader policy. “With agile policymaking, opportunities are created and entrepreneurs and business houses are taking advantage of them. At the same time, new challenges are emerging globally. “So when we sound somewhat cautious, it is because while these opportunities are emerging and the dream of India becoming a manufacturing hub is evolving – with better logistics, infrastructure and energy availability – some established industries will also face challenges. Both realities will coexist.”
Hiranandani added a strategic layer to this, arguing that the question is not just where to invest, but how to define competitive advantage. “Ultimately, innovation is not a skill – it’s a culture… we also need to think about where our ‘right to win’ lies… whether it’s first innovation, incremental innovation or even reverse engineering what already exists and making it better and cheaper.”
He also linked it to broader economic developments: “I also think it depends on how wealthy we become as a community … as we build more wealth as a nation, you start to see more innovation and more R&D spending.”
This is related to the broader scale point. As Ghosh noted, the real difference is not just the growth rates, but the absolute impact: “7% of a small number is still a small number, while 1% of a much larger number is a very large number.”
The missing layer: innovation and venture capital
Despite the range of opportunities, participants were candid about the structural gap – innovation.
Sharma framed it starkly: “Where are our inventions? Where is our Apple?” His argument was not just about results, but about incentives. “No one wants to go into a high risk game…go. went bankrupt, you most likely won’t get another loan.”
This is bolstered by low R&D spending. As Sharma pointed out, Indian investment remains a fraction of its global counterparts, increasing the risk that we will “remain copycats”.
Anish Mashruwala, Partner, JSA Advocates & Solicitors linked it to both technology and mindset. “We are resilient as a race… AI will change… we just use it.” But he also highlighted a deeper structural constraint: “We are very cost-conscious… we want the best quality at the lowest price… and that is very difficult to deliver when we compete on a global scale… because of this, innovation has often taken a backseat.”
Jain pointed to the absence of venture capital. “The capital is there, but venture capital is limited… unless the government subsidizes and invests, it will be difficult to build strong R&D.” He added that while the talent is there, “we haven’t been able to do the same in our home country.
At the same time, it was recognized that this could evolve over time. As Mukim noted, India is only now entering a phase where private equity is generating meaningful returns at scale. “As they earn more money, they gradually develop an incremental appetite for risk.”
Execution Constraints: Talent and MSME
Even where capital and opportunity align, execution remains a constraint – especially in the talent and enterprise space.
Varma pointed this out from the healthcare sector: “Capital is no longer the problem. The problem is who will use it.” The shortage is not just for highly skilled workers, but across roles, from engineers to technicians.
Mittal noted that even engineering graduates often require significant industrial training before becoming fully productive. “If India is to build a lasting leadership in industry, we need to evolve from a consumer society to a producer society,” he said. “Without becoming a producer, we will not build deep capacity for large-scale R&D.”
Sridharan highlighted MSME as a critical lever. “MSMEs are hugely important… they generate a large share of employment… but they are among the least burdened in the world.” The opportunity is to enable them to scale.
China plus one: opportunity, but not yet scale
On the “China plus one” issue, the consensus was clear: the intention is there, but the execution is faltering.
Sharma described the current shift as “small and slow”, limited by structural obstacles. Similarly, Mukim noted that global buyers are willing to diversify but remain concerned about “certainty and timeliness of supply”.
Varma captured this gap succinctly: “Geopolitics certainly helps… but we’re doing a remarkably poor job of that sentiment.”
At the same time, the track does not have to be binary. As Daruvala indicated, India may not always compete directly with China. In some sectors, “China can be part of the supply chain … and then there can be significant value added,” creating a more gradual transition.
Key things
- India’s capital deficit poses challenges, but significant opportunities exist in infrastructure and emerging sectors.
- Agility in business strategies is key to navigating the current unpredictable global scene.
- Innovation and a risk-taking culture are essential for India to transition from a consumer to a producer economy.
