India Inc. Meltdown Impact

India Inc. is cruising slow but steadily as the global slowdown has dampened the hiring prospects, causing it's outlook to hit lowest ever.According to a survey only 19 per cent of the employers are showing positive recruitment plans. There seems to be a considerable decrease of 24 per cent points quarter-on-quarter and 27 per cent year-on-year.

Employers in India report the second strongest hiring intentions globally, next to Peru. The situation is unclear;the amount of damage done to the world economy is uncertain and the clear picture can come up only in next 5-6 months time.

East India has the strongest hiring plans with a net employment outlook of 20 per cent followed by the South India at 19 per cent. However, the weakest hiring plans are surfacing in West and North India at 18 per cent only.

Analysis shows that mining, construction and manufacturing sectors can expect the most active hiring environment. While Wholesale and Retail sector can get the worst hit with a net employment outlook of 11 per cent.

Though global slowdown has affected world's economy the positive sign is that India and China are surviving it relatively well with the latter being limited to -1 per cent to the expected growth rate.

Visit to BIEC Automation Fair

Dev has an interesting article.

http://spearheadatbiec.blogspot.com/2008/12/fun-at-work.html

Here is an excerpt:

“Dev, you and Krithi get ready for the Automation Trade Fair on 10th December at the BIEC”. Those were the first words of SB when he stepped into office on Monday, 8th December.

Believe me, I was on my foot and said, “Yes Sir”. I found out the names of the participating companies, didn’t print it though. I got the cab booked (AC – Tavera); after all we were representing Spearhead Intersearch.

So 10th December it was and we were there at the entrance. It was a fair where around 500 companies from automation and engineering sector were to showcase their products and services. Krithi, a goddess who just came down to earth in a black salwar suit was the centre of attraction and the god himself was just making the girls go crazy in light purple shirt and pitch black trousers.

The setup in BIEC was huge. Sorry, I don’t have any pictures to support the last line but I am telling you, it was indeed a great show. You could actually see faces from almost every part of the world standing in their respective stalls, all looking enthusiastic and charged up (They had to be, it was 11 AM in morning) showcasing all kinds of components and equipments used in factories and automobiles.

However, for us it was a nightmare. I am an electronics engineer and Krithi I believe is also the same and here we are in the middle of Pumps, Motors, Shafts, Belts, Screws, Filters etc etc etc. I always told my dad that I wanted to be a Mechanical Engineer but he never listened to me (Sorry dad. I just pulled you unnecessary into this). We could see people in front of us, we could see them staring at us but we were still thinking as to where and how should we start. Now the famous lines comes into play, Where There Is a Will There Is a Way (Oh!! that rhymed...hai Na? Sometimes I think that I should have been a poet...haha)

Anyways, let the story continue. So we took a round of the entire hall and decided that it’s time to attack the Germans. We were actually looking for faces. I don’t know whether you would agree to me or not, but I think that one can easily make out from the face of the person that whether he is a CEO or MD or someone else and this works with me when relating faces to roles. We were bang on target from the beginning as we bumped into one CEO and then into an MD. Believe me; talking to them is far more knowledgeable and fruitful rather than speaking to some company representative. So we were doing well, actually very well indeed.

There were mostly German companies who have some distributor in India. Most of the Indian partners or subsidiaries were pretty new to the Indian industry. When asked about the plans of expansion almost everyone had one common answer, “This recession has put a halt on our plans of expansion. Maybe in the next 1 year we would think of coming to Indian markets as they hold great opportunities”. Everyone actually praised the Indian markets and still India is sometimes referred to as 3rd world country, strange, isn’t it? We got to speak to lot of people, some were even themselves looking for change (ya ya...dont worry, I have their names and numbers).
We were at our peak of BD when suddenly Krithi’s sandals gave up; I guess it had enough of walking so it just snapped. But that did not stop Krithi from walking. She did not look down or even back down. Spearhead spirit is just great. We then went to other stalls. We also met the officials of a company from Taiwan. They were good, but believe me after we spoke to them I am actually planning to open an institute and name it as Can You Teach Me English? You won’t believe, I had to bend down, fist to match his height and then I had to reduce my rate of speech from 120 wpm to almost 30 wpm. It was a challenging thing to do and you know Dev and Krithi, we are born to take challenges. Anyways, we finally took a break and had lunch at the food court there, Executive Non-Veg meal and a Chicken Club sandwich. It was good. Could have been better if they would have used some extra pieces of chicken. Well, I guess the chicken sale also has taken a hit in this recession period and the chickens have reduced their egg laying capacity. “You don’t give us food, we won give you eggs”, that’s what the chickens must be saying.
The post lunch session was also good for us. We met lot of officials. Showcased Spearhead Intersearch in the best possible professional way. Gave out lots of visiting cards and also collected lots of them. I would say it was a good day. Lot of work done. Lots of contacts made. We may not be able to target them right now, but 6 months down the lane we sure would have a good chance of healthy business with them.

Overall, it was a good exposure for both of us. We have two pictures that we took when we were out of the halls. Actually were so busy working, we actually forgot taking pictures to make this more illustrious. Anyways, something is better than nothing.