eople of Andhra Pradesh are extremely entrepreneurship-savvy. It is for the Government to tap into this resource pool and gain maximum leverage, says Kiranmai Dutt Pendyala, AMD Greater Asia & EMEA Corporate Vice-President (HR).
Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a conference on entrepreneurship, she says small start-ups can think of tapping into cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT), the two most happening things currently.
“For instance in Anantapur district, look at the good work done by the Satya Sai Trust in the areas of education, health and drinking water.”
Ms. Kiranmai straddles diverse roles of designing strategic plans on talent acquisition, talent management and talent development and partners with the Human Resources leaders besides teaching, training and consulting.
Referring to the capital buzz in A.P., she says the aim is to make this place a manufacturing hub “but we need a different set of skills for it which none of the engineering colleges here impart. With the Government planning development of infrastructure on a large scale, there’ll be need for civil engineers and other ancillary units,” she said.
“Development of the ports and the five airports will create jobs. Youth here is technically very smart. But, articulation of speech, exposure and ability to speak up is what they lack.
It’s a typical small-town phenomenon and you find a similar thing happening even in the US; small cities vs. big cities,” points out Ms. Kiranmai.
Gap in demand and supply
Speaking about the wide gap between demand and supply of engineers in the industry, she says “it is because engineering education here is in lecture mode which imparts only passive skills. Students listen and write notes. Their productive skills are not put to use. This way, we are making followers, not leaders,” she rues, and goes on to add: “The need is to challenge the status quo”.
A lot of people here are entrepreneurial, but it is different from the global arena. “Ours’ is a large country with a huge market capital. But are we leveraging that?”
Talking about the new capital, she says it’s a 10-year play. “Vast infrastructure like good hospitals, schools, residential colonies and good roads are what we need to put in place and ask the bureaucracy to move in if we want the industry to develop here,” she says.
The authorities, she opines, should create a consortium and we need to tap into SMEs to have the growth engines started and once that happens, the larger players will automatically enter, she says.
Reiterating the need to make the best of the prevailing climate, she says the industry is very hungry. “After Gujarat, people are looking at Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States in the country. It is for us to find out ways and means to translate the attention into investments,” she adds.
