Innovation in Emerging Market: Data Points

"The engineering gap" in the January Economist states:

"According to the [Aspiring Minds, India], only 4.2% of India’s engineers are fit to work in a software product firm, and just 17.8% are employable by an IT services company, even with up to six months’ training. A larger share could cope in business-process outsourcing (call centres and the like). These findings are even gloomier than the 25% figure for employability that has been bandied about since 2005, when McKinsey released the results of a survey of international companies."

Download the complete report here.

The article "Grow, grow, grow", in Economist's recent report on innovation in emerging markets here, states: "McKinsey reckons that only 25% of India’s engineering graduates, 15% of its finance and accounting professionals and 10% of those with degrees of any kind are qualified to work for a multinational company."

The emerging market growth is fantastic, yet reviewing the thorough report from the Aspiring Minds raises or should raise questions for the multinationals. Also, curious if this level of employability applies to the Indian scientists as well?

In the report on innovation in emerging markets, the following statistics provide food for thought:

"The number of companies from Brazil, India, China or Russia on the Financial Times 500 list more than quadrupled in 2006-08, from 15 to 62. Brazilian top 20 multinationals more than doubled their foreign assets in a single year, 2006...

Multinationals expect about 70% of the world’s growth over the next few years to come from emerging markets, with 40% coming from just two countries, China and India...

Fortune 500 [companies] have 98 R&D facilities in China and 63 in India. ... General Electric’s health-care arm has spent more than $50m in the past few years to build a vast R&D centre in India’s Bangalore... Cisco is splashing out more than $1 billion on a second global headquarters—Cisco East—in Bangalore... Microsoft’s R&D centre in Beijing is its largest outside its American headquarters in Redmond... a quarter of Accenture’s workforce is in India."

Cisco to make SmartPhones

Since I published my blog on Cisco being the 21st century eCPG leader here, I have been provided with some insightful links on Cisco's further plans in the eCPG sector.

In an article "Are Smartphones on Cisco's Wish List?" here on Chinese website C114, analyst Mark Sue of RBC Capital Markets is stated as declaring:

"Considering its big push into the consumer market, we believe Cisco may be developing a smartphone of its own, slated for mid-2010."

To further the claim, the article cites:

"On Mar. 31, Cisco was awarded a patent for managing time delays in relaying video wirelessly to consumer electronics devices. The same day, it received a patent for a network-connected phone able to stream video. Many of Cisco's recently filed patents mention a personal digital assistant as a device that could potentially use the innovations described."

The article also provides good insights on the USA's broadband capabilities reaching a point where tele-presence will start to become a retail service along with cable TV, etc.

I look forward to the consumer digital services and values generated through competition.

21st Century eCPG (electronic consumer products goods) Leader - Cisco?

The appetite of the 21st century consumer when it comes to electronic or digital products is an area that continues to see expenditure versus other sectors. In the digital world all bits flow to the routers, just like all water flows to the oceans. Cisco is starting to own all the digital waterways with it's over 130 acquisitions in the last few years. The recent acquisition of Flip has me wondering if Cisco will be the P&G of the electronic consumer product goods of the 21st century?

If nothing else, I declare that the new term eCPG requires application to Cisco. Question is if growth through M&A activity or acquisitions can be considered consumer innovation?

Curious as to where is Intel?