Good afternoon, good morning, everybody.
Can you hear me now? Good.
I'm Aiko Doden, senior news commentator for NHK, Japan Broadcasting
Corporation, and I will be hosting today's session.
Thank you very much for coming to our session.
The topic of this session is Attracting the Best and Brightest.
As Asia becomes the center of growth for the global economy, we will first
examine how two major players, China and India, are trying to secure the
best talents.
And then look into wider impacts these efforts may have.
NHK will record this session for Asian Voices, a debate program on key global
issues. This will be broadcast to 120 countries
worldwide via NHK World. It will be shown six times, with the
first broadcast on September 25th from 02:10 UTC.
So please do join in.
The program can also be seen at that time on NHK World TV website or via the
NHK World iPhone application.
I did a bit of public relations for iPhone here.
Before we begin, may I remind you to turn off your mobile phones.
You are free to take photographs, but please make sure that the flashing
setting is off.
The session is recorded, as you can see there are cameras.
So please do stay in you seat and I will have to do my best to make this
discussion as engaging as possible so that you will choose to stay in your
seat.
I look forward to your contribution in making this discussion a meaningful
one.
We are almost ready to start the recording.
...
Let me first introduce the panelists to you.
We have Dr. Mari Elka Pangestu,
the Minister of Trade for Indonesia. She is an internationally renowned
economist and former executive director of Indonesia's Center for Strategic
and International Studies. She joined the Yudhoyono cabinet in the
year 2004 and is now in her second term.
Next is Dr. Liu Jiren, who is chairman and CEO of the Neusoft Corporation,
China's biggest IT solutions and services company.
He studied at universities in China and the U.S., took a special interest
in computing, and then returned to China where he established his company
in 1991.
It quickly became a top Chinese hi-tech firm.
Next is Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, who is the CEO of Infosys Technologies, one of
the world's leading software development and IT consulting firms.
It's head office is in Bangalore in India, and the company employs over
105,000 people in 23 countries.
Next to me is Professor Atsushi Seike, who is the president of Keio
University.
With a history of over 150 years, Keio was chosen as a key establishment in
the Japanese government efforts to attract more international students.
Professor Seika holds a PhD. in commerce and specialized in labor
economics.
So let me start with a China question.
In June this year, year 2010, China announced its first talent development
plan.
The plan suggests that China hopes to go beyond being seen as a world factory
with its vast supply of cheap labor. And I understand, one pillar of the
plan is to attract 2000 top-tier talents from abroad over the next 10
years. Dr. Liu, although it is just one pillar
in the bigger scheme, 2000 seems a bit modest for a country with a population
of 1.3 billion.
Yes.
A little bit confused. Two thousand, that means the top
scientists. It's not, if you look at the government
plan, they have very detailed framework.
It's not only for scientist, and also they like to have more talent working
in education sector, in manufacturing sector, even in social works.
So, it is a 10-year plan.
That plan tries to support the transformation from traditional Chinese
economic model to the new model. So if you look at the history in the
past 30 years, China's growth is driven by people.
So around 300 million people immigrate from rural areas to come to downtown,
to cities, to join manufacturing. Because of their contribution,
China makes a lot of things at very competitive price.
And also, that is a great, immigrate to changing what we call urbanization.
So like more and more people become citizen of cities.
So that makes China just like today. But if we look at those type of
business model, that is not sustainable.
So we consume a lot of natural resources.
So, energy we have a big problem.
Another big challenge about China is now, every year, we have six million
young people… from universities. What is their job in the future?
So the other problem is economic issues and also, we say the stability
of society, that is another challenge. So government plan is to buy the
institute, the policy, this is made by government, to changing the structure
of the people. I mean get more talent.
Of course, to attract more talent, we send to study abroad, they can go back
to give more and more opportunity like in to enjoy, you know, new, to share
some growth as a China economy. That is their idea.
So I think after 10 years, the government have launched, today is 9
percent of educated people as working force.
It's after 10 years, their target is 20 percent of educated people to be as
working force, I mean higher education from university.
They have 100 percent government officer have a degree of university.
They have most of, you know, few to more than a thousand research institute
who is driven by talents from global wide.
And also they work on more and more foreign expert to get a job, to have
a work in China, so that (…) If I could intervene there, the part of
the current plan is to attract outstanding talents, I should say,
but what is the field that China is particularly interested in achieving
talent and improving the strength?
Okay. I think is that, of course, to attract
the talent is first the, every people, they hardly have gotten opportunities.
But today's China, if you look at today, more and more Chinese are just
like myself. Twenty years, I study U.S.
I go back, but most of my classmates still working in the United States.
Because at that time, there is no opportunity.
But today, the institute plan, and I cannot say attract more talent to go
back. I can say China attract people, they go
back. Just like in India.
More Indian, we call, talent mortality. They're just like a tadpole,
they're moving determined by opportunity. That is why the government, I think
the purpose is simple, because, yeah. Would you or China be confident that
the top-tier talents from abroad, as you said, will choose to come to China?
People can say that China had different degrees of opening up to the
world. It tended to be varied from time to
time.
I don't think China now is looked at as an economic power and this country
is still a developing country, and so most of the people that come to China,
they see Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, they say that is developed country.
But if you drive 100 kilometer away, they say that is another world, like 20
years or 30 years before in China. But, that is opportunity.
That is why talent to like to say how long?
What is space for them to working here? I think the driving force in the
future is, one, multinational company. They attract more and more Chinese,
they study abroad. Send him to go back to working here.
That is one of big volume. Secondly, they come back, they want to
start up their own private company. So more and more high-tech company
is a startup by Chinese who have experience working in multinational
company or studying in the United States.
And Mr. Gopalakrishnan, you must be tired of people asking questions
whether it's China versus India. But if China succeeds in attracting the
best and brightest, will that show its effects to India?
No, I believe that there is space for both the countries to grow, which
is actually beneficial to everyone.
India will take its own trajectory of growth.
For example, right now, India has grown primarily on top of growth of services
sector. More than 50 percent of the economy
is service driven today. It's an interesting differentiation of
India in the sense that without getting into manufacturing, India has developed
a good services economy.
So India will look at attracting the best talent in two ways.
One, because of the growth of the economy, it attracts investment,
it attracts businesses, it attracts people to come back to the country.
And if the right environment is provided for entrepreneurship,
for businesses to flourish, for innovation to happen, definitely, you know,
the country will attract the right talent. The second way Indian,
especially Indian businesses would benefit is by recruiting people globally, either to
work in their operations around the world, or to work in India, you know,
to come back and work in India. We are having a larger and larger
number of non-Indians coming to India and working in India.
Now, if you look at our story itself, InfoSys itself, we have a significant
presence in China, in Eastern Europe, in South and Latin America,
in Philippines, etc. In China, we have 2600 people.
So we are actually benefitting from a growing educated population in China,
which wants to work for global companies.
So we're benefitting from that and we've grown quite heavily in China,
2600 people. So we see this as a way for us to take
advantage of the creativeness of India, take advantage of growth in different
parts of the world, and the ability to
attract the right talent. We have to make sure that we create
the right environment, both in India as well as enforcer for these people to do
well. And in the end, IT industry,
including yourself, your company, is reaching out for Chinese talents as you have said.
Yes. So, you know, we have had good
experience growing our center in China. As I said, we have 2600 people.
What we look for in attracting people is, one,
learnability. You know, ability to learn, because today's environment, you know changes
are constant. Change is happening faster and faster,
so you have to have employees who can learn very fast.
Second is problem solving skills. You know, an attitude to life,
when you see a problem, you don't feel threatened.
You don't feel challenges, you feel that it is interesting problem to
solve. It is an optimistic kind of attitude.
And the third, because they are in IT industry, a passion for technology,
passion for information technology and things like that.
And we can find such people anywhere in the world, and that's what we look
for when we look for employees.
I see. So do you think this so called
flattening of the global economy has a role there?
That with the spread of the internet, all countries can compete as he called,
and being a bright boy in that remote part of India will not be
a disadvantage. How do you think does a flat world
phenomenon or ideas have affected the corporate structures and human
resources struggle?
So in one sense, yes. If you have access to internet, if you
have access to education, you can participate in the globalization,
you can participate in the opportunities that are provided.
But there is still a large population.
So for example in India, about 300 million people are still illiterate.
So, the challenge is to make sure that they have access to internet, they have
access with education. They can participate in globalization,
etc. And how soon can you make that access
available to them. Because today, because of television,
they see what they're missing.
So they know what they want and how can you get that access to them as
quickly as possible. So we need to make sure that they have
access to education, they have access to capital, or you know,
entrepreneurship is possible.
And Dr. Pangestu, Indonesia because of its geopolitical location, must be
feeling China's impact or India's impact on Asian markets.
You have once spoken about the need for Indonesia to avoid direct
competition with China and find niche markets.
What would that be, do you think?
Yeah, our strategy in terms of having to compete with two large emerging
economies as our neighbors is to differentiate, do product
differentiation, find the niche that is in line with our talent.
So for instance, China as the factory of the world has a large pool of very
low cost labor producing mass-produced goods.
So we do not compete head on in that area.
We try to find a niche where we move up the more medium and higher end of any
of the manufacturing value added chain, and we try to promote the fact that we
do have low cost, not just low cost labor, but also low cost and skilled,
as well as creative labor force.
And one of the things we have found when we do comparisons with,
especially with regard to human resources, between Indonesia, China and, I'd say,
Vietnam, is that Indonesian labor force has a low turnover rate.
So in any of these low cost factories making garments, footwear, we have
a one percent turnover rate, whereas in China or Vietnam, it's like anything
between eight to ten percent. And that's partly because in China,
you are relying on migrant labor who are moving,
yeah. They are coming from the rural areas, coming into the urban areas.
Whereas in Indonesia, the labor tends to live where the factory is and that's
part of the reason for the low turnover rate.
And that's seen as a positive, and by going medium-higher end, we also try to
promote, that is not just low cost, but also low cost, skilled, and creative
labor force as well as better educated, and we have a demographic dividend on
our side compared at least with China. Maybe not with India, but with China,
because we have, 50 percent of our population is below 29 years old and we
will have a demographic dividend where the young, the dependents are less than
the productive labor at least for another 10 to 15 years.
Whereas China, I think, the turnaround will happen in another five years.
And I think the last thing we try to do is with respect to India, you know,
India is very strong with IT.
The IT services sector is the other major area that developing countries
should get into. We are not strong in IT, but we think
we are strong in other areas in the services sector, such as design,
ammunition, and we have already begun to do outsourcing for this kind of
work. And this is, I think, it's just
beginning, but this is the future for Indonesia and I think the other way to
not compete with China and India is to collaborate with China and India,
and one of the collaborations that's going to be signed very soon is we're going
to collaborate on an animation feature film on Xianghua with one of the
Chinese companies, and also with CCTV. So, we think that's very exciting.
So, you know, don't just compete, collaborate where, you have different
specializations and skills and with internet, with, you know,
connectivity, you can be anywhere in the world and be working together on a project for China
market, Indonesia market, India market.
So you see this as an opportunity? Yes, I think it's an opportunity that
we should really explore more with, you know, human resources with different
skills and talents, and connectivity bringing us together.
And would I be right in saying that Indonesia, rather than pursuing talents
abroad, you are trying to utilize what you have within, the talents within?
Yeah. We try to grow the talent within our
own country and we have allocated 20 percent of our budget for education.
And in the latest global competitiveness index of the World
Economic Forum, we actually went up by 10 rankings and one of the reasons was
improved education, especially for primary level education and part of
this 20 percent allocation for education was used to raise teachers'
salaries. So teachers are now earning, in the
public schools, are earning almost the same as in the private schools.
Because that was, previously, all the good teachers would go to the private
school and not to the public schools, but we need to do more work on the
higher level education, on innovation, on the technology development, ICT,
and so on. That's the next step that we will
address. And you represent the public sector,
the government. There is a role that the public
sector, the government, can play in encouraging that trend.
Yes, uh-huh. Professor Seike, what is your reaction
to the discussion so far. I mean Japan was Asia's first
developed country and enjoyed a period of high economic growth.
From such viewpoint, how do you view China and India's hunt to secure
talent?
Well I think, although China and India are still, you know, enjoying its
competitive power from a lot of labor and mass production.
But, sort of you know, the center of gravity of competition is certainly
shifting towards creating new value added by, you know, highly talented
people even in India and China.
And because of that, you know, they have demand for highly talented people
who can create new value added is now growing certainly.
And as I said, of course, Japan has experienced the same process of
economic development.
However, I think in the case of Japan,
most of the companies, particularly you know, national companies, tended to
train or cultivate these, you know, highly talented workforce within the
company instead of seeking them from outside.
However, in case of today's China and India, mainly due to the new IT
technology, you know the seed of economic growth is more rapid than the
case of the first Japanese experience. And of course, you know, the potential
size of an economy itself, themselves, are larger in India and China.
So you know, they tend to rush to recruit already established,
highly talented people, both from domestic and international labor market.
Oh, so that might be a challenge for Japan in a sense.
To some extent,
yes. Mr. Gopalakrishnan just commented on his definition of the source of talent
that the company seeks.
I presume the definition of the best and brightest is evolving as the
economy evolves.
Who are the best and brightest people that you seek?
You mean, what is the (…) What is the definition of the talented
people or the talent that you are looking for?
How is the talent before in this country, the definition of talent
is certification of a university.
But I don't think that is right,
and you may look at today's students and it's the only thing, 15 percent of
graduate student, graduate from this university in China, can meet that
standard of talent requirement for multinational company working in China.
The reason is, we need talent who can speak good English, but now we have
a foreign language university, they are very good in English.
But they also need people who understand communication.
But 100 percent of that people, that people don't understand communication.
So they made the people understand the governance of company and business
management. They need how to approach the market in
different regions, or those kinds of purpose that they say,
university, really, I don't think that is only issues of China.
Global wide, university needs very much reform to meet the demand of economic
growth, especially from the industry sector.
So that is a big gate.
You know, the companies like InfoSys and NeuSoft, InfoSys have 100,000 more
employees. We have 18,000 employees.
If every year, we recruit a few thousand people, if we use our own
money to train that people one year,
that may be a 10 percent off our profit.
But if you don't train that people, they cannot meet, may not qualify to
work for you. Some you need to train two years, so I
think now, how to build a new kind of, you know, platform, like education
organization should be very close cooperation with the industry.
So like, they know what is the demand
from the marketplace. I always make a joke.
Today, professor got a job is because of university student, but the
professor never thinking about what is the job of a student.
So they got jobs because of the student come to university, to keep
this stable income, everything here. But if you think, what is the demand,
what kinds of skills are needed? Most of professor maybe not,
because (….). But you are a professor yourself?
I was a professor.
You know, I was a professor before.
Now I switch to businessman. I can understand by my personal,
I'm teaching in the past, I can say only 20 percent of things I teach is available
for business.
But I'm still teaching because there is some framework, there is some
design, by some bureau, by a ministry of education.
So they have some kind of thing. It's a fully, like a professor just to
follow up their idea. But you know, only few people, so,
to make those kinds of designs. But today, if we say that people
is indeed, very much it gets worse, so that should be checked.
This is challenging to universities, I think it's (…)
And NeuSoft staff have in-house a large educational facility.
What is it like in your university? Yeah, we have.
I tried to solve the problem in the past and saw then the pure use of our
own money.
We set up our private university.
Now 25,000 student in NeuSoft University only for IT,
information system. We are very much enjoy of that.
All the courses are designed by us and they will learn something we know that
is needed. So that makes our student after the
graduate, they can get high-paying job because we know what is high payment,
what is shortage of the talent. So also, that is good for NeuSoft.
We train the people, you know, university.
Every year, we recruit some percentage of our people working for us, only one
or two months to train him understand all this NeuSoft.
That is enough.
So university is a non-profit center. But we make the profit by dividing the
people. So it's very exciting.
Educational institution is part of a so-called supply chain of good source
of talent. I think that is the ecosystem.
If you look at NeuSoft have many multinational company work with
NeuSoft. It's not because of NeuSoft.
This is because NeuSoft have a human resources development platform.
We share this platform with all our party.
They join, they work together with NeuSoft.
At the same time, we develop in there. So, I think that is a big change in
the future, you know, just like Kris talking this morning.
The people in passing learn one skill.
They harbor it for whole their life. They can just for, you've got a job
that's stable. Now, the learning university maybe
only for five years, six years. People change the job in 20 years,
30 years, maybe five times to six times.
What kind of system has support people to continue to learn?
Let me ask Mr. Gopalakrishnan, because InfoSys does have a large training
facility as well, and you must share views with Dr. Liu.
Yes.
We have started any university focused on external education.
Our corporate university is focused on training our own employees.
This year, we will be recruiting 36,000 people.
One in one year.
Out of that, about 22,000 to 23,000 people are at the entry level straight
out of college. So we have to make sure that we bridge
the gap between what the university system teaches them to what the
industry requires, and bridging the gap.
And that is what our entry level education tries to do.
so when a person joins or when an employee joins, we give them five
months of training in our corporate university.
At any given point of time, we can train more than 10,000 people in the
corporate university.
And we spend 4 percent of our revenues, which is almost $200 million
every year on education and training.
Over and above this, we budget 10 days of continuing education on an ongoing
basis so that we can help that employee in their career progression.
Because an employee who joins at the entry level will progress to become
a manager, will progress to become a leader within the company, and everyone
of those transitions must be with training.
So there is a business related training to teach them about industry,
then there is managerial training to teach them about managing people,
managing relationships, managing teams, managing customers, and there is lastly, how do
you run an organization, how do you run a business, that's a leadership
training, so that we can internally grow the future leaders of the company.
So that's a comprehensive program we have.
I'm sure Professor Seike is dying to speak up at this level… to challenge
the utility of the (…) No, no,
no. I'm not challenging. I think…I myself is read by
economists, so I still believe that as far, you know, working ability,
working skill is concerned, I think on the job training is the most important,
you know, school for you to gain the ability.
However, you know, universities or other schools will be able to provide
a good platform for the people to get, you know, good on the job training.
So I think there will be a glowing opportunity and possibility for
collaboration to train universities and the business world to foster this
talent input. Yeah.
Because for a country like Japan where I understand, one out of four people
are already over 65 years old, we are a seriously aging society.
So in order to cope with the aging society, we need to have more,
you know, people working longer than, you know, coming… And having that sense
also, you know, we need to have a sort of a retraining program for our middle
aged people to continue work beyond their current retirement age.
So you know, training, education, you know, retraining, re-education, to be
extremely important for any…
And Dr. Pangestu, I believe in educating women as talent, as one of
the best and brightest that does count in this formula.
Oh definitely. I think in today's age, this gender
bias should no longer be there.
The best and brightest is just the best and brightest, whether they're
women or men, and we have seen studies in our university where, say 20 years
ago, girls actually underperformed academically.
The main reason is so that they can get a husband.
This is shown in the survey. And even myself, I did end up doing
a PhD, but my mother told me, "I don't want you to do PhD, you'll never get
married", you know. So there was this bias that, you know,
that's all gone. Now, all the girls are doing same,
similarly with wives, even better. Sounds very familiar.
Yeah? And in recruitment, you know, we found
in public service recruitment, once we opened it up more merit-based,
more than 50 percent are women, you know, at the first entry level.
And even myself, now I've been in government for six years, you know,
I don't look at gender. I just look for the best and the
brightest. I think 30 percent of my top and middle
level management within my ministry are women.
And this is somewhat of a, if you like, revolution.
So I think attracting and retaining best talent must mean providing the
right kind of conducive environment. And I think one of the innovations
that we did as a government coming in, in 2004, our president, I guess he
experimented. By bringing in professionals,
bringing in some people with business background, some of course, because we
are a democracy, we have to also bring in people from the political parties.
But political parties, we also tried to find the more the professionals.
So the question out there is, how do you retain, you need to have effective
government policy, not just companies having good talent.
You must have good talent in government to have effective government
policies.
Attracting professionals, attracting business people to run government
policy. It's very challenging.
Now, I've been there for six years. You come in because you come and take
a huge pay cut. You come in, okay I'm going to change,
I'm going to do reforms. And then you sit there and then you're
faced with the bureaucracy, which doesn't move.
Yeah. So the next step that must go along
with that to retain good talent at the top level as well as at the middle
and lower level is bureaucratic reform.
And here is where, you know, we do actively go out to recruit to the
universities and sell. You know, you have to sell your
ministry. Why would you want to work for my
ministry? Because A, B, C, D, E, and then once
they come in, we will train you, we will send you for higher education,
graduate training, skills training.
But your place in the ministry as you go up in the career path also has to be
made clear. And finally, very important,
remuneration. This is something that's work in
progress in Indonesia, where for the same level of bureaucracy, you know,
they have different levels. You can have different wages depending
on the type of work you are in. So someone working in the tax office
will earn more than someone in my ministry, just because it's a higher
risk, more burden in the work and so on.
So more merit based and more remuneration based on performance as
well as on job description. This is something very revolutionary
in a bureaucracy, but this is needed, I think if you want to not just attract,
but retain good talent in government. Otherwise, it's not just companies
that need to have good talent. Governments need to have good talent.
Thank you. For Mr. Gopalakrishnan, I think the
same principle might apply to private sector as well.
The question here is how to retain the talent that you have acquired.
It is tempting to assume that a high salary and good working conditions are
the only key incentives. Is this true?
How would you define the incentives? No, you will have to look at a broader
set of incentives, compensation and salary is very important.
You know, there has to be a minimum level, but ability to work with peers
whom you respect, you know, the peer group is important.
And open and conducive work environment is very, very important,
a non-hierarchical, especially with today's youth.
Ability to learn and improve their own knowledge base and ability to improve
their employability, because that is again very important.
Sometimes, you know, a purpose in life and a purpose and that they are
associated with the business itself. You know, what kind of business,
so sometimes purpose is very, very important when you want to attract
people in the government, etc. because of the larger good you are able
to bring about changing society, etc. So there are multiple things you need
to cater for in today's world.
Salary is just one component.
I see. And Dr. Liu, you have said before that
the appeal of a firm is more than financial.
It seems that many of the cultivated, the young engineers in the Chinese IT
industry often being lured away by western firms, with often offers that
are difficult to resist.
What needs to be done to stop those engineers or scientists from leaving?
I think my personal experience is, how to say, that you learn in a working
environment.
Now the culture, of vision, of value
is more important than the money.
And, so in NeuSoft in the past 19 years, we have a very, very low
attrition rate especially for you to achieve…, I mean the problem,
a thousand, two thousand people.
The reason is, firstly, we have worry, the game of worry or trust.
So meaning, we give him power, then work for us, but they just like an
individual startup company.
They have their financial power. They can recruit their resources
and people. They can give a proposal to divide
and spend some money for RnD, and also give him more space.
Sometimes, you give him a difficulty more difficulty, you can pay less.
So that is kind of a balance. So that means the people enjoy those
kind of a challenge.
Another issue for me is the challenge of the country, difference of aging.
Maybe a little bit of difference. So you can all say, in Beijing,
you use Beijing's policy to say the people invest of China.
Because the living standard environment is totally different.
For me, the NeuSoft now, we have operations in Germany,
Romania, Finland, Middle East. For Europe, I have so may
communications with our employees. It think they are much more sensitive,
you know, holiday time, than the money.
So that means you have to give this, if you make a free job, you can have
a double holiday, then you pay double salary.
So that means it's very different,
even all the Chinese, we need to learn much, need to focus on, we're a micro,
you know, arrangement, not very much general.
And what about Japan, Professor Seike? I think the situation is also the same.
I mean, you know, creative people and high-caliber professionals can still
like to have more… of freedom and working hours and working places.
And really add one thing,
particularly for very creative people, or you know, high-caliber professionals, I think
they tend to like to have their own credit for the work they have done.
Because for a professional or for creative people, you know, sort of
personal, their, his or her personal brand is more important than company
brand. So they tend to love to have their own
credit for the work they have done.
And would regards to Japanese government or Japanese academic
institutions, what further efforts do they need to make, to first secure
talents and then retain them?
Well, first of all, for the Japanese business, although, you know,
recently, some companies started recruiting for example, you know, foreign talents
and international student, and also, you know, the Japanese government is now
trying attract talented international students to take into Japan.
But, maybe I think we feel Japan is a little bit late to attract these high
talented manpower. So in order to attract these highly
talented people, we need to provide more attractive package.
And for example, you know, for the Japanese company, you know, because of
sort of seniority that the wage is structured, they tend to pay lower
wages for younger people.
And these, you know, relatively lower wages are not so attractive, you know,
young, brilliant people,
particularly if they have offer from much, much attractive offer from Chinese
and Indian companies. So maybe, in order to attract or
retain these young, talented people, maybe to some extent, the Japanese
business have to devise it, sort of evolve the system as a whole.
So the society as a whole has to evolve… To some extent, of course it takes time.
We are almost coming to the end of our discussion and I would like to ask you
all a final question.
As we have seen, the hunt for human resources depends pretty much on how
attractive your offer is, not only in financial terms, but as an opportunity,
and how attractive the working environment is and the leadership,
and if the future looks promising if he or she decides to take that path.
To attract the best and brightest,
what is your vision of the growth model, and your ideal philosophy in
doing your business? May I start with Mr. Gopalakrishnan,
what growth model are you considering? You have said that the business in the
emerging market needs to behave properly as well.
If you look at the broader definition of sustainability, sustainability of
business must include a respect for society, a holistic development of the
business in harmony with society, and the leadership must behave in a way,
or must conduct themselves in a way that they get the respect of the employees,
the get the respect of the society in
which they operate. I mean that is very, very important in
today's world, and many employees look up to this leadership for their own
career progression, their own vision of the future and things like that.
So that's why it is important for the leadership to conduct themselves
appropriately.
You know, in today's world, actually CEOs are losing respect in some sense
and they have to regain that respect in the way in which they conduct
themselves.
And Dr. Liu, what will the future look like for your firm?
Will it become even more global or what do you further seek to accomplish?
I think a key point is the people. The people is concomitants of NeuSoft
in the future. So our strategy is to build
a leadership in…, not only by Chinese. So we need to borrow more people from
overseas, from Europe, from United States, from Middle East.
So from the place, which are for marking in there, and also in our
board, in company governance, we will like more, the people is from all sides
to join us because that gave us more global vision.
So today, if you look at opportunity,
the people is very much mobility.
So we can easily take people from manufacturing of cars,
quality assurance from Japan, innovation from the U.S.
For our automotive mobile phone, we got people from Germany, from Finland.
So also, if comparing the cost, I don't think that China is only competing in
cost. So even, you know, we have our person
in Romania, I say Romania cost is the same as China now in the software
business. So the worries of life has a lot of
opportunity for us, so find the right people.
Right people doesn't mean the Chinese people.
So we need to learn, to build our trust, to line in to, say, you know,
the company can also give him excellent working environment for everybody who
joins NeuSoft.
Dr. Pangestu, how well Indonesia position itself in the Asian economy
and the global economy, what is your vision?
My vision is that I think the key is always the human resources and the
people.
And I totally agree with Dr. Liu just then who said that basically, the old
way of education where you teach somebody one skill and they have that
skill for the rest of their life working is no longer viable in today's
globalized world. So you have to change the way you
undertake your education.
They have to be creative, they have to be flexible.
They have to know how to change and adapt to different situations.
So we are spending a lot of our resources in terms of the education
budget to improve the primary education, we start with the primary
education. And we're developing what we call the
creative industries, which is very much, you know, on the mind.
You know, your main resource is your mind and how innovative and how
creative we can be, and that requires both a curriculum change and the way
teachers teach.
Not rote learning, but you know, thinking, thinking out of the box
and teaching creativity.
And part of the education budget we will also spend on sending our best
and brightest abroad. We have a scholarship fund that we
have set up within the education budget, which will send the best
and brightest abroad, because we also need to learn from outside.
So how do you go from efficiency-driven economy to
innovation-driven economy? I'ts your human resources, it's your
technology or readiness, it's your research and development, it's your
innovation. I think, you know, that's what we need
to develop in the next five to ten years ahead.
And we also need to have effective leadership within the government.
So we need to retain a track and continues to retain talent within the
government, both at the top level as well as at the working level.
And at the top level, I think how much people like me who come out from
non-government coming in as professionals, succeed in undertaking
reforms is going to be key. So bureaucratic reform is a key part
of it.
I myself, I'm the trade minister. I had a colleague who was also a woman
in the Finance Ministry position.
I think role modeling, you know, in terms of where would the younger people
strive to role modeling, such as the gentleman here to, is also very
important. I can be there, I can reach there.
That's also a very important aspect, I think.
So you are certainly charged with a very important mission.
And finally, Professor Seike, how will the race for international talent
protect the Asian countries, including Japan and the world, and what future do
you foresee?
Well, of course you know, the international mobility of highly
talented people is growing and opportunity is expanding beyond the
countries borders. So those not only Asian countries,
but also European and American countries are highly affected.
I think in the short-run, you can sort of, you know, head hunt or attract
highly talented people by offering good financial incentives.
But in the long run, if you scramble, if you continue scrambling for highly
talented people, we have to cultivating or training new ones.
You know, the supply of these talented people will be depleted sooner or
later, so we need to have some,
you know, collaborative schemes in which we will be able to train for studies
highly talented people. And of course, you know,
universities should be involved in that scheme. So I really love to see, you know,
Asian countries, including China, India, Indonesia, and of course Japan,
will offer the world some sort of Asian model of collaboration for developing
human capital and developing the best and brightest.
Yeah. That's my hope.
Thank you.
I think we have some time for questions and answers.
If you could raise your hand and identify yourself, and also articulate
to who that question is directed to. I will be happy to take perhaps one or
two.
Please raise your hand.
I am aware we are close to lunch time, but questions welcome.
A gentleman in the front row.
My name is Orioso Abe, I'm from Kyoto University, at the same time I'm
working for the… Foundation, which is essentially like… Foundation to help
management accounting researchers doing their jobs.
And my question concerns the overall values, missions, visions, and purely
from the panelists', you know, speeches and discussion, I thought that values,
missions, and visions, or cultures seem to be a very important element of
attracting the best and brightest. At the time, not only attracting
those, but also cultivating those people, potential candidate people.
So I would like to know your opinions about how much that element affects
your businesses? Who would you like to address that
question? Uhm, to those, particularly to
Professor Liu Jiren, Mr. Jiren, but also to the other panelists, as well
as, especially to Professor Seike, whether that kind of stuff can be
taught at the university or is that something redundant that we shouldn't
talk at the university level.
And any more questions? I think I should take questions
and then ask the panelists to answer in one go.
Any hands?
Lady in the back,
please. Hello, my name is Maura O'Connor. I am the chairman of the Los Angeles
County Economic Development Corporation, representing what would
the 17th national largest economy, if we were a nation.
I would like to ask the gentlemen on the panel to address what,
because we've heard from Ms. Pangestu, what steps culturally they think are needed
in order to encourage the movement into management of women in their particular
cultures and would be interested in learning, because that is also
a challenge we face. Thank you.
We heard two question from the audience, and the first question was
directed to Dr. Liu and Professor Seike for the… , and the second question from
the lady in the back was about integrating women into the management,
and that question was addressed particularly to the men panelists on
the panel. So anybody ready to answer the
question? Dr. Liu?
I think the value, the mission is really, really very, very important.
And especially when the company gets bigger and bigger and management
executives, you have no chance to dialogue with each of the individuals.
So, given every people the common sense, the common party dream,
that every shares same dream, that is very, very important.
Like NeuSoft value, we have every people that keep a symphony.
That means if you want to talking something direct report.
Teamwork, you need to help each other first.
So that means, when you give a job to anybody, you need a… So application
and, you know, first you need to give and take something.
And so, that is, you know, I think the value sometimes, culture is not very
comprehensive. It is very, very simple, but those
simple thing is very, very hard to implementation.
And for us, of course, every newcomer when they join the company, we have
a book for them to read, we have a video and promotion program, and then we have
our special organization we call Branding and Culture Center.
That is, that became organization to promote the value and mission
and culture, so that everybody, everyday, they can smell what is the culture
needs. And so, that is a very,
very difficulty, but you must do this, otherwise, the people, you lose their
direction.
And the second question about the integrating women into the management,
what steps to be taken to have more women into the management.
Women? We are a very example in NeuSoft.
Women in NeuSoft is very possible.
And we have a CGO, CKO, CFO, and chair for marketing office, all women.
So they are really good, especially in software business.
You know, woman is very, very detailed
and especially in CFO.
I recommend you CFO, woman as CFO is best.
The men and money, just like managers, they have own financial.
It's a very, very, you know, but of course sometimes, it is a challenge.
They don't spend the money for RnD. That is the challenge.
So, but I think that women in general is very much equal in executive
management and in professional,
and it's good, so we are enjoying 40 percent of certified personnel employee
of NeuSoft is women.
I see, and then please go on to answer the women and the management.
Uhm, 33 percent of our employees are also women.
Of course, there is equal opportunity for women employees to rise up.
But we have to make sure that every single policy, every single step we
take is, you know, is evaluated based on a common framework, and that we do
to make sure that we encourage all people to progress within management.
At senior management, there is a challenge today, but over time,
we believe we will be able to overcome. Because 10 years back, the percentage
of women was 18 percent. We have brought it to 33 percent.
So we have come a long way, but we have some ways to go.
On vision and values, I strongly believe that the leadership must
commit, leadership must walk the talk,
you know, the best example of leadership by example itself.
And so, what we do and enforce this is as part of the leadership training,
I am also requested or required to teach leadership values, ethics,
etc. So leaders themselves teach these things.
And Professore Seike, two questions in one go.
Yes. Well, I think value and missions are
very important to attract people. And I think you should distinguish
these values and missions of, you know, institutions, say a company, and the
professions.
And I think, you know, for creative people, or you know, high caliber
professionals, I think they are more loyal to their own profession rather
than institutions they are belonging to.
So I think if you really attract these people, again I said you need to pay
respect for their own profession. And they want to have their credit for
the work they have done, rather than, you know, the company's credit.
So, for the first question, value and mission is important, but you know,
highly talented people (…) And quickly,
(…) Oh sorry, sorry. Women issues, of course you know,
eventually you know, market power pressure will solve that problem.
You know, unless you know certain business will not be able to utilize
highly talented women's power, this company will lose competitive power in
the market. But before that, there'll be certain
kind of policy incentives to increase, you know, for example, the proportion
of the number of female managers within a company should be necessary.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
It seems that the ability to attract the best and brightest may depend
a great deal on the growing power of a nation and its industries.
The hunt for talent we discussed today will no doubt have the potential to
affect the world economic growth. And so for that reason, this is an
issue that continues to demand closest attention.
Thank you very much for being with us today.
That's it for Asian Voices from Tianjin.
Please join us again next time and let's give a big applause to our
panelists. Thank you very much.