Janesh and Ramakanta are looking at us attentively, waiting for our reply. Lucy, my teammate from UBC, and I have been nothing but completely impressed by the two MBA students from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, our teammates for a case competition on the challenges facing India surrounding childhood malnutrition. For several weeks we’ve been meeting by Skype to try to discuss the case, working around our exam schedule in Canada and a busy interview season for the Indian students. Now that we’re finally in the same room on the IIM campus, less than 24 hours until we present, Janesh has suggested that our Canadian perspective on an Indian problem will be very valuable for the case. “How does Canada deal with problems of malnutrition? What programs do you have there?” he asks.

Lucy and I look at each other, a little dumbstruck and afraid to admit we don’t really know. It’s not an issue that receives a large amount of attention at home, aside from some school meal programs and concern for first nations communities. We don’t know how to explain that the problem – while not to be understated – just simply isn’t an issue on the scale that it is in India.

“The problems are…different.” It’s about the best we can come up with.

Working cross-culturally with the students from IIM Bangalore was one of the most rewarding and educational parts of the program for me.  It is easy to see how this institution has gained its sterling reputation as one of the most selective schools in the world. Our teammates were keen to ferret out information and were able to present it in dazzling displays. The amount of research they had already done and were able to do in a short time was nothing short of mind-blowing! It was hard not to be intimidated.

Through creating the presentation, though, we were able to find our strengths and where we could add the most.  Knowing most groups would be presenting a dizzying amount of information, we pushed on narrowing our focus and telling a compelling story to differentiate our group.  I suggested telling the story from the perspective of a young mother from a poor village, trying to find the story that will connect with the audience. Working collaboratively we started detailing what a day in Nirmala Devi’s life would be like: where she lived, at what age she was married.  I found I could relax my fact-finding and analytical skills – these guys had us more than covered! – and focus on keeping everyone on the same page, making sure everyone knew what their role was in building the story and the presentation, and keeping the mood light and people motivated. When the group divided up for the evening after a team dinner, we each had pretty clear objectives for the next day. While I normally drift towards this kind of a role, keeping everyone ‘in sync’ definitely felt more difficult and complicated in a cross-cultural group!

As part of my MBA journey, I am learning to step back from front-line ‘execution’ roles as much, and focus instead on group dynamics and leadership, shepherding the group when needed. I’d like to play more of a role pushing others who sometimes can’t see the forest for the trees to step back and look at the bigger picture, focusing on analysis, synthesis, and insight instead of just the reiteration of facts. I think I can encourage them to think from an audience’s point of view, to communicate their points in compelling ways.

Our presentation was well-received and we made it to the final round! It was an honour to be able to present at such a prestigious institution, to such an esteemed panel of judges, and with such a stellar team.

Our IIM Bangalore Case Competition Team

In Thomas Friedman’s 2005 book “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21^st Century”, he argues that our increasingly inter-connected and globalized world is becoming both a more level commercial playing field, and more competitive one. He argues that these ‘flattening’ forces will only accelerate and put pressure on businesses in developed countries as the talents and abilities of individuals in developing nations emerge. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Is_Flat.)

This year, UBC launched its revamped MBA program, which includes a mandatory two-week Global Immersion in one of Denmark, Singapore or India. As one of the 22 students traveling to India from Februray 10^th to 24^th, I had the opportunity to see both these flattening global forces in action, and where the differences between cultures still maintain a disconnect that maintains the divide between developed and developing countries. Through site visits to several companies, visits to an NGO that delivers essential health-care services at a world-class level, and a case competition with students from the prestigious IIM Bangalore, we saw the inspiration of Friedman’s book first-hand.

In a world where geographical boundaries are increasingly irrelevant, outsourcing has moved online to tap into international workforces through such automated platforms as odesk and elance  while Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service  harnesses the power of human intelligence worldwide to crowdsource answers that computer algorithms alone cannot determine.  Many of these boundary-shattering platforms have only been possible because of advances in communication and collaboration technology. I found it fascinating to hear about how one company we visited, 2adpro, has invested heavily in a technology platform to better enable collaboration on marketing projects in geographically distributed teams.  They are a marketing and design firm, that traditionally has competed on price for work that requires more lower-level execution than high-level vision and cultural context. As the cost advantage such Indian firms erodes, they are trying to leverage their existing relationships and build skillsets at a higher, more strategic level. But it’s the investment in these collaboration platforms that I think will pay off for them and be a key differentiator for such companies. As Friedman notes, the rise of such workflow software will enable global competition and cooperation. Companies in developing nations are leading the way in determining how the new era of online international business will operate.

Visit to 2adpro offices

Infosys Training Campus – Mysore

That technology is a driving force behind the economy of India that helps the country gain competitiveness internationally was evident throughout our time in India, from the impressive Infosys training facilities where the company trains an overwhelming number of computer programmers, to our tour of Aurolab in Madurai. Aurolab is the high-tech manufacturing facility for the Aravind Eye Care System, a social enterprise that performs nearly 7% of all eye surgeries in the world, many of them at no cost for those who cannot afford to pay.

Aurolab Tour – Costumes required for the cleanroom environment!

Our experience touring the Aurolab facility and both the for-pay and free Aravind eye hospitals was one of the most memorable parts of the trip. It was an excellent example of technology improving lives for all social sectors, not just those at the top with education and access to the latest technology. Too often the technological accelerators end up dividing developing nations even further, instead of bringing up the standard of living for the country as a whole. As we saw when examining the problems facing India regarding malnutrition (see my next post about the malnutrition case competition at IIM-Bangalore), disparity between classes and regions in India is growing, not shrinking, as it gains economic momentum. For the world to truly become ‘flat’, equal benefits from these new economic tradewinds need to be derived across developing societies.

Built to help move objects around the International Space Station, the Canadarm 2 was built by MacDonald Dettweiler and Associates, a Canadian company based in Richmond, BC. As part of the team working on the command and control software, we brought a critical project that was behind schedule back on course so that the overall project, and launch in 2001, would not be impacted. For our outstanding efforts we were recognized by NASA with a Team Excellence Award.