Shilpa Shetty and consulting

Mick ponders over the recent row over Shilpa Shetty in the UK reality show Celebrity Big Brother to explore the attitudes that define India in the eyes of Britain and British consulting firms.

From Top-Consultant.com:

"consultancies have led the pack in establishing business links and subsidiaries in India and China. But the tendency has been to portray this side of the business as “resources”, brawn to back up the consulting brains.

Naturally, firms with Indian roots don’t necessarily conceptualise things this way. The challenge as they see it is not to grow a delivery side to deliver the downstream promise for a consultancy front end. Rather it’s to add consultancy to a pre-existing delivery capability in a way that allows it to be deployed more intelligently. I’ve been lucky enough to meet with a number of Indian firms and their growing consultancy arms over the last year or so. They’re definitely poised to be super-competitors, but only if clients are going to be receptive. As the Indian economy continues to grow, so will the scale and complexity of infrastructure and enterprise projects. That expertise and experience can flow back into the UK—or we can ignore it and let others take advantage. What a shame if the burgeoning Indian consultancy industry decided to bypass Europe and concentrate its efforts in the States. "

Interesting read. All said and done, I think Indian firms feel US firms interact more at a partner level with Indian firms than European and UK firms whose perspective of India and Indian firms might be shaped by history more than they might realise.