For India to achieve the target of becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2024, Indian industry needs a far bigger global market. India ranks 18th in world export rankings (2018 statistics, CIA World Fact Book), and intensive efforts can push India into the list of top 10 exporting countries – all of whom have one or more globally recognized consumer brands. Exports are the backbone of an expanding economy, including for creating millions of new jobs.

India’s export growth needs higher-quality consumer products – manufactured in India from Indian companies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ efforts with foreign brands in India will not be enough. Multinational consumer brands have been made in India for decades. Colgate- Palmolive has origins in the US when Mr William Colgate started his soap and candle business in New York more than 200 years ago.

Colgate products are widely sold in more than 200 countries, but not a single Indian product is a worldwide household name. India has excellent scientists, engineers, exceptional talents in various fields – but not one consumer brand among the world’s 100 most successful companies in 2019. This ‘Mystery of the Missing Indian Global Brand’ needs serious attention, exploration, remedial action. No shortage of managerial expertise from India.

Indian-origin chief executive officers lead information technology companies Google, Microsoft and Adobe – among 10 leading global brands (https://www.interbrand. com/best-brands/best-globalbrands/ 2019/ranking/). But the world has no Indian version of Apple, Intel, Accenture or Dell. Why has India not yet produced an equivalent to Samsung, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Sony, Huawei, KIA or Canon – the South Korean, Japanese, Chinese brands among the world’s top 100?

The question needs to be the core of “quality” conferences organized across the country, such as Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) ‘Institute of Quality’ in its 27th ‘Quality Summit’ on 23-24 November 2019 in Bangalore. CII Institute of Quality claims: “Over the past century, CII has provided Indian Industries with the support, systems and tools to make a mark in the competitive world.”

Any marks Indian industries achieved are not good enough to enter the world’s century list of brand excellence. Likewise, the 33rd National Convention on Quality Concepts is to be held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi, from 26th to 30th December. Organizers ‘Quality Circle Forum of India’ say they have been playing a “significant” role in skill development of quality concepts in manufacturing and maintenance industries, service sector, education, health, rural areas and society for about four decades.

Next up is the World Quality Congress next July in Mumbai. How much quality do these quality conferences have? In comparison, the ‘Applying Lean and Six Sigma for Organizational Excellence’ conference from February 23 – 25, 2020, in Phoenix, Arizona, USA (www.asq.org/ conferences/six-sigma) offers a more structured, focussed, practical-application oriented agenda.

How and where exactly does India lag behind in the hard work to deliver globally-recognized brands? Solving the mystery starts with research and development (R&D) that form the backbone of quality manufacturing and services. India’s R&D spending has stagnated for 20 years at 0.7 per cent of GDP. The Economic Survey 2017-18 said India needs to redouble efforts to boost R&D.

The USA spent 2.8 per cent of GDP on R&D in 2017, Japan 3.2 per cent, Israel 4.3 per cent, South Korea 4.2 per cent and China 2.1 per cent. Probably India’s R&D share goes to greasing the corrupt palms of criminal politicians and bureaucrats who choke the country’s growth. China’s total R&D investment is estimated to be 20 times more than India – with R&D shooting up to 12.3 per cent last year to a record US$ 254 billion.

The world’s leading companies spend about 10 per cent of their sales in R&D. India’s leading Tata Group spent 2.8 per cent of total revenue in 2016 on R&D and even that fetched rich dividends: additional revenue averaging $1 billion for three years since. Tata Group’s flagship Tata Motors ranks a humble 247th in the Fortune 500 list of the world’s leading companies. Only seven Indian companies feature in that list, in a country with the world’s fifth-largest economy based on nominal GDP (not taking inflation into account).

R&D is the excellence-giving oasis, but Indian companies are yet to drink significantly from those quality waters – and so the missing Indian global household-recognised brand, and India lagging in exports. Even when India has superior quality products, with R&D based on traditional know-how, marketing power goes missing. Vicco Vajradanti Toothpaste is superior to any multinational brand I tried.

Or the lesserknown K.P. Namboodiri’s toothpaste after using which my dental troubles ended. But shopkeepers outside India would have no clue about brands Vicco Vajradanti and K.P. Namboodiri’s. So, the second clue in the ‘Mystery of the Missing Indian Global Brand’: insufficient marketing. The world’s top ten spenders incorporate advertising invested an average of about $2.5 billion each year.

The entire advertising market in India (in 2019, Statista report) is $10.5 billion, just above that of Indonesia and just below Canada ($11.02 billion). Procter & Gamble by itself has annual advertising spend of around $4.3 billion. Rigorous R&D and smart marketing are not as important as the ‘X’ factor of excellence: Right Efforts. What quality of work culture do we have in India?

“If you’re going to do something, then do it right” attitude drives a culture striving for precision work, if not perfection. Perfection can be intangible or relative, but not the basics of excellence, such as: punctuality, self-discipline to get work done in time, love of the work we do and the tireless extra efforts for quality. Charlie Chaplin’s unforgettable classic City Lights (1931) is what it is for the effort that went to it.

In a scene involving Virginia Cherrill (who plays the pretty blind girl selling flowers) Chaplin demanded not three, five or six takes – but 342 retakes for this one scene: https://youtu.be/Zgcn_UdSJHI. India has exceptionally successful entities such as Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). ISRO has earned the country Rs 1,245 crores ($175 million) in the last five years launching satellites of 26 countries, with 284 commercial satellites launched since 2014.

I keep hoping that ISRO will branch out to making the safest, fastest, cheapest, most fuel-efficient civilian aircraft, an Indian version of Boeing and Airbus that is far superior to Boeing and Airbus. Hopefully, someday the ISROmade Pushpak Vimana 250 to 500- seater aircraft designed in India and made in India will become the world’s best-known aircraft brand – and solve the Mystery of the Missing Indian Global brand.

(The writer is a senior, Mumbai-based journalist)