René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

The interview I gave was a horror, it happened last Tuesday, October 3rd in Munich, local time 11 am. Vikas Kumar, editor at the Economic Times of India, called me as agreed upon and I was – sort of prepared for it. The problem, however, was that I had been to the Oktoberfest (here it is again) the day before and had such a bad hangover that I hardly got out a single straight sentence. Well, given that miserable state, I have to be thankful in multiple ways about the overly charming article in the Corporate Dossier of yesterday’s edition with the title: “The Call of the East”.

My favorite lines of the article:

He’s done 14 days of beer guzzling at the Oktoberfest in Munich, where he’s gulped down 40 litres of beer. “A cruel act of self-destruction ,” is how he describes the experience.

Ya, ya, ya, I confess: guilty. Now all back straight to highly disciplined work for the next 50 weeks. On a more serious line, I feel truly humbled that Indian media is paying attention to the work of the last three years in this amazing country. It was certainly a high “risk-high reward” decision that time back to move here, yet I feel that after some hard droughts the situation is starting to swing towards “reward”. What confirmed my decision was the fantastic 20-pages survey in one of the latest Economist-editions on the new globalized world-order, titled “The new Titans”:

China, India and other developing countries are set to give the world economy its biggest boost in the whole of history [...]. What will that mean for today’s rich countries?

It means quite a lot. My major takeaway: Don’t be afraid, the upsides are far bigger than the possible losses. Second: Don’t fall into protectionist patterns; it will just postpone the effects from the immediacy of a global market – but with a really hard landing. And third: Revamp your society towards structural change as the engine for prosperity by initiating a culture of achievement right from the start in education.

After three years in India, I had the chance to see what dynamic of a fast growing economy means – against all odds for example from a government which is not really helpful, to say the least. Whenever during my travels to Germany I switch on the “Tagesschau”, Germany’s leading TV news, I can’t believe my eyes what alleged “problems” my country is dealing with. I believe it would be a great cure to send some of these useless union leaders for an internship to any of these fast growing Indian com-panies to see a few things with there own eyes.

First, that their bargaining power in Germany has been diminished badly as the supply for work had increased beyond their reach – yet within the reach of entrepreneurs who understand how to source from a global talent pool. And second, to witness how an economy can thrive if people feel that through their very own effort their lives can improve dramatically and they will try hard to get there. This is indeed the antithesis to the whining, complaining and demanding of unfortunately not negligible parts in German society.