ndian outlook much too U.S. centric, says marketing guru Seth

New Delhi, July 21 : Forecasting a new geo-economic reality in the world driven by markets of emerging nations, Dr. Jagdish Sheth, world renowned Marketing 'Guru' today asked India to look at issues in a "multi-centric" way instead of the present US-centric prism.

Delivering a lecture on "The Tectonic Shift: The New Geoeconomic Reality" at Observer Research Foundation here today, Dr. Sheth, Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School, Atlanta, USA, said "India is now obsessed with too much US-centric outlook. It has to change, and adopt multi-centric approach".

Saying India and China alongwith the United States would form the "emerging geoeconomic triad" replacing the US-Canada, European Union and Japan triad, Dr. Sheth predicted emergence of a new Asian currency.

Dr. Sheth, said the 21st century would certainly belong to 'Large Emerging Nations (LEN)' as the 19th century belonged to America and 18th century to Europe. He said LEN would consist of India, China, Russia, Brazil and other emerging countries.

Dr. Sheth, author of famous book 'Chindia Rising: How China and India will benefit your business', said the new geo-economic reality would lead to resources driven global expansion, resources driven global mergers and emergence of strange bedfellows.

He said it would also lead to rise of scarcity driven profits (of commodities, scientific pool, industrial minerals, etc), shortage driven innovation like alternate energy, cloning of living organisms, manufactured materials, etc and raising resource life expectancy (green movement, public private partnerships and mandatory regulations).

This would lead to emergence of largest consumer markets (cell phone, steel, education), rise of Chindia's global enterprises (Mittal Steel, Haier, China Mobil) and R and D shifts to Chindia, Dr Sheth said. He noted that China has surpassed Japan in R and D while India's next BPO would be global R and D.

Dr. Sheth also argued that economics would drive global politics in the 21st century with it leading to resources driven politics (like in Bolivia, Venezuela, Central Asia), market driven politics (Chindia, Russia, Brazil) and global trade and investment hubs like Dubai, Shanghai, Singapore, etc.

This would lead to rise of multilateral politics with emergence of trilateral politics of US, Europe and APEC, Chindia leadership in world bodies and agencies, emergency of new global currency and new Asian currency and trilateral currency wars, Dr. Sheth said.

Dr. Sheth predicted it would lead to redefining of capitalism and democracy with compassionate capitalism, disciplined democracy and worldwide rise of spiritualism.

To reengineer India for global competitiveness, Dr. Sheth said it would have to bring in ideology-free, innovative, quality reforms in business policy, industrial policy, infrastructure policy and trade policy.

ANI