Dr. Hans-Paul Buerkner, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group GmbH believes that India has a great growth potential
In an exclusive interview with ET Insights, Dr. Hans-Paul Buerkner, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group GmbH talks about the recent energy crisis, global growth prospects, and India’s economic potential. Excerpts from the interview:
Being the CEO and the chairman of the BCG group, you have been consulted across various demographics. Can you talk about the challenges you have faced?
Companies essentially face challenges related to technology, adaptation, implementation, and transformation everywhere. Everybody talks about AI, but it’s not the only challenge. Technology creates enormous new opportunities but also challenges for existing business owners.
All companies are grappling with climate and sustainability issues and trying to go green, essentially transforming the way they are doing their business. This translates not only to reduced emissions but reduced costs and waste as well.
A common problem that companies face is intense competition for talent. We face talent scarcity really hard at all levels, of engineers, scientists, electricians, plumbers, people working in hospitals, nurses, doctors, geriatric care, etc. So, there is a massive need out there.
The recent pandemic has thrown up supply chain issues. Organisations have changed their perspective from thinking global to regional, with the supply chains and companies constantly having to evaluate not only opportunities, challenges and risks, costs, but also the quality of what they’re getting.
Speaking about sustainability, how is Europe geared up to tackle the energy crisis?
In the short term, we will have more emissions from coal-fired power plants stepping in for the otherwise gas-fired power plants. So, in the short term, we will not be able to reduce our emissions in Europe as we were hoping for, but in the medium to long term, over the next 10 years, it will significantly accelerate.
The establishment of free technologies, solar power, etc, will help countries become much more self-sufficient and have certainty in their power supply. Green energy will play a major factor.
How do you look at India’s growth story in relation to the world?
At present, the growth momentum is good, certainly in Asia. In India, 7% plus growth is possible. Southeast Asia and other regions are looking at a growth of 4 to 5%, including China. Europe is, of course, slowing down its growth story now. Latin America and Africa will see about 3% growth as they are still depending too much on commodities, and growth will be quite volatile. But overall, I think the prospects for the world are not that OK. India, with the largest population in the world, is looking better in terms of ease of doing business. The infrastructure is improving.
Although there’s still lots of room for improvement, government institutions and states are making huge efforts to ensure there is momentum. There are reforms across states, making big efforts to attract not only foreign direct investments, but also domestic investments.
