Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures—and Yours

Chapter Six

Infosys and TCL

Unshackling Indigenous Enterprise

I recently spent a day with some of the leaders of a major European steel company at Harvard. The subject of Mittal Steel’s 2006 acquisition of Luxembourg-based Arcelor came up. The group exchanged views on how Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian entrepreneur, had turned the industry upside down with his $23 billion deal.

“It’s not likely that we’ll see more deals like that,” remarked one of the visiting steel executives. “Besides, it’s really a Dutch company, not Indian.” The latter statement has merit. Although the founder of Mittal Steel and many of his top managers are part of the Indian diaspora, the company is headquartered in Europe and has little of its assets in India.

“What about Tata?” ...