Customer Reviews

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

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This is a curious book, not really about entrepreneurship but rather about a broad range of cultural, social, historical and economic subjects involving and contrasting China and India, from 1.5 billion village dwellers to urbanites in Beijing and Mumbai. Tarun Khanna's text is part travelogue, part reflection, part history and part speculation about the future. Anyone who has read to any depth about China and India will not find all that much that is surprising here. However, getAbstract recommends this book with enthusiasm because of its nearly unique richness of anecdotes, variety of perspectives, color and range.

Professor Tarun Khanna describes and explains the social histories, lay cultures, religions, politics, infrastructures, resources, regional differences, and business successes and flops in China and India using personal observations, anecdotes, case histories, and statistics to help readers understand opportunities in Asia to access resources and enter markets there. His style makes the book appealing and interesting as he highlights the contrasts.

Rather than make a case for mirror images, Professor Khanna argues that good businesses will gain benefits from both countries by coordinating resources and market positions. His main example is a chapter explaining what General Electric has done in both countries.

I thought the best part of the book was arguing that natives of each country develop solutions for how to create more successful businesses. That's a point that few multinational companies are going to consider seriously enough.

I always enjoy reading about examples of superior business models, and this book is relatively rich in describing businesses that contain interesting twists on traditional ways of operating. I also didn't know the history of how many of the major new businesses in India got their start.

I hope that Professor Khanna will follow up this book with a narrower focus on the opportunities for small company entrepreneurs in both countries. I think he would do a fine job and the information would be valuable to a much larger audience than this book will probably command.

Khanna provides a broad and deep perspective on how China and India are changing the world we live in. This book is an easy read - and not just for area experts, businessmen, or academia - but for anybody and everybody who not only wants to understand what to expect from the world in the very near future, but how to successfully compete in this new world.

Some good history and insight but nothing earth shattering. I was expecting more. The best parts deal with a variety of historical exchanges between China and India. But the book gets bogged down in too many areas and the writing style is a bit jilted and verbose. There also many references and quotations which can get tiresome and make the reading cumbersome. But the author has done an admirable job in addressing the linkage between China and India and what it might mean for the future (although the last chapter, which tries to tie it all together, left me flat).

Being born and raised in India, married in the US to my beloved who is orignially from China, and currently living and raising our two kids in China for the last several years, I have had the opportunity to observe a lot of what this book talks about in an up-close and personal way. While I am impressed by the amount of research and effort that has obviously gone into this book, I am ultimately disappointed by the author's inability to transcend his own biases and the tendency to measure everything from what may be best called a "Western" viewpoint. The author's understanding of India is clearly much superior than his familiarity with China. China is a notoriously difficult onion to peel and I'm afraid the author does not get beyond a couple of outer layers. As a result, while the book has some interesting anecdotes and some valiant attempts at analysis, it fails in providing an objective and genuinely insightful comparison of the two countries and cultures. I found particularly galling the failure to adequately examine areas of radically different performance of the two nations in areas such as literacy, general health and nutrition, gender equality, social harmony, facility with the physical world, success in organized sports, and many other areas where China is outpacing India. There are some salient reasons for the differences, but you won't find them in this book. What analysis does exist, I would rate as average at best.

For those interested in understanding China and India and indeed Asia more deeply, I would recommend much more highly the work of Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

I was assigned to read this book for a MBA class on international competitive strategy. I found this book to be much more interesting to read than a "traditional" textbook, while retaining its academic roots. By the time I finished the book, my understanding of India and China's culture as well as each country's influence on the global economy was much richer than before.

One example:
A chapter in the book is dedicated to discussing India's and China's use of soft power and hard power. Soft power is defined as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments." The book is very successful in illustrating how India has mastered soft power by spreading its culture internationally through various channels (for example, Bollywood movies). Conversely, China has become very successful at using its economic and military resources to create desired results. Burma/Myanmar is used as an example due to the fact that this country has felt both India's soft power and China's hard power.

While this book is not inclusive of all apsects of China's and India's international influence, it's a great start. I'd recommend this book to anyone curious about India and China. It's a wide-ranging overview of each country's government and culture, which will be a great asset to anyone given the growing international influence of each country. If you're attending the Beijing Olympics, it'd be a perfect read on the flight to and from China.

I just finished reading the book, which I found to be terrific. The amount of field research and analysis which has gone into the book is amazing and I surely felt intellectually richer by going over the content. What I liked about the book were the details shared about different routes India and China have taken to enter and compete in the global economy, and how that has resulted in their gaining complimentary strengths, leading to success in 'hard' infrastructure related industries for China, while India showing strength in 'soft' infrastructure related ones. It is critical for MNCs to appreciate the emerging prowess of several local firms in both countries and also recognize the complementary nature between the two countries before it's too late for them to benefit from the rewarding environment.

Interesting insight was author's study of 30 Asian multinational subsidiaries (in China and India) who seem to be doing equally good in both countries. Also, although FDI in India has seen moderate growth (as compared to China), I believe Indian companies and private equity players are filling the vacuum for investments needed and taking bolder and bigger bets which shows immense confidence they have than in the country's potential.

Enjoyed reading the book and will recommend to anyone who wants to get a complete picture on two emerging economic powers in terms of their strengths and weaknesses.

Absolutely recommended for anyone remotely connected with India and China. The storytelling style is amazing. The book covers the history, the progress in recent times, the similarities and dissimilarities in a truly eye opening fashion. The comparative examples be it in terms of development of cities, birth of large global corporations, the contrasting political framework, the press and media functioning, influence of the large non-resident population, education systems, healthcare systems, etc make for very interesting reading. Even as an informed Indian, there were many things I learnt for the first time.

A great book to show the contrast between the two countries. India is a democratic society and China is controlled by the central and provicial government. Yet there are more news of China daily in American media.

China is efficient, with good engineers, hardware infrastructure. India is transparent, accountable, and with soft power. China government can complete projects over night, but the same project will take years to complete in India. India railways, 1.6 million employees, inefficient. China Shanghai Pudong airport, Maglev train, magnetic levitation, German tech, constructed in a short time.

I love the many personal accounts from the author. Through his in-depth interview, he got the primary source of data. Machimmar Village Dharavi slum coexists with the Ambani billionaires, only in India. Red Princes (sons and daughters) of China Communist Party ruled everything in China. While in India, it is done by consensus, just like USA.

The winning in the market place of National Stock Exchange over Bombay Stock Exchange, Weihua Group (China) success, Self Employed Women Association (India) The failure of Microsoft in China, TCL global stumble, Hukou registration system, GE Healthcare and GE Medical success stories make this book a compelling read.

Caste (India) has four levels:
a. Brahmins: the priest, teacher, philosopher for education and religion
b. Kshatriya or warrior class: kings, and defense governors
c. Vaisyas: traders for agriculture and commerce
d. Sudras: serve the above three

Dr. Devi Shetty, Walmartization of Healthcare, at Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital is amaging, like Mother Teresa reborn!

The problem of Chinese Health services was severe. 640 million Chinese received no health insurance coverage.

Huge investment in Burma was made, from Chinese top three oil firms: Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, Sinopec, and CNOOC. Now the top three are in Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Angola, and Nigeria.

1962 China India war was due to boarder issues. It was a set back for India. But a minor event in China.

In 2003, 3.6 billion people watched 1100 Bollywood movies, compared with 2.6 billions attended 600 Hollywood firms.

A quote from Jawaharlal Nehru, India and China fly over the mountain to bring their messages of cheer and goodwill and creat bonds of friendship that will endure. From Buddha to software, the cooperation of China and India is necessary.

At Singapore, Chinese is 77%, Indian 10%, rest Malay. It has been a success, while the Chinese and Indians worked together. The question is, will the two countries work together going forward?

I am from India and have lived in USA for more than 30 yrs. I keep in touch with business news of India. It contains less important historical aspect of India.
I was disappointed by the book.