Section C

Section C Group 05

SM II

Stephan and Silvia (2008) list out three main challenges in managing global sourcing of science and engineering talent:

 - Recruiting, developing and retaining talent global

 – Coordinating far-flung innovation activities

 - Collaborating with external partners

 To advice on above dimensions for “make in India” projects with respect to a bullet train service (rail body, as well as rail lines), connecting Mumbai with Ahmedabad.

ANS:

The High Speed Rail System comprises of the infrastructure system, rolling stock and operating conditions.HSR globally differ in their technology, infrastructure, including rolling stock, and, consequently, achievable speeds. Global experiences show that the level of economic development was a major influencing factor for the introduction of HSR. As income grows, the opportunity cost of time increases and people shift towards faster modes of travel.

India’s intercity transport demand is mainly met by road and rail. Growth in population, urbanization and incomes is expected to propel travel demand in future. Increased investments in rail for improving efficiency of railways and reducing travel time would address the competitiveness of railways and arrest the decline in rail share in total intercity transport. Ahmedabad and Mumbai are large business centers that contribute significantly to the national GDP. Mumbai is known as the financial capital of the country. The corridor is also important as it links a significant economic region in the country covering two major cities in Gujarat: Vadodara and Surat. It is evident that there would be a substantial increase in travel demand.

Offshoring doesn’t only mean accessing pools of highly skilled talent around the world but also involves product development functions, such as engineering, research and development and product design. Economies see offshoring as an opportunity to increase speed to market for their new products or processes and to better access S&E talent.

Recruiting, developing and retaining talent global:

 To succeed in the emerging global race for high tech talent, companies need to develop strategies for recruiting, developing and retaining talent globally. By looking at the realistic picture of opportunities and constraints facing companies and policy makers in emerging economics we can draw deeper understanding about the talent. S&E jobs are perceived as less challenging, too routinized, less interesting, the change in perception would attract more talents from domestic as well as other economics. With the change in thinking of such graduates who feel the job id less interesting would further help in retaining talent in S&E. High speed rails need significant upfront investment for the development of dedicated tracks, stations and signaling systems. The construction costs depend on a number of factors including type of tracks, land acquisition cost, choice of technology maximum operating speed, number of tunnels, bridges and viaducts involved, number and scale of stations. Further for the development of bullet trains special tracks have to be created. The track as well as train depends on the specific technology. As the technology chosen for the tracks is specific probably we can look for better options elsewhere when the technology is ripe. India is a developing economy and it has to tread safely for such heavy investments. China, is growing rapidly with high concentration of S&E talent and Japan had already been in this field would help in locating such talents to India. Also share of investment related to engineering activities in India and China is predicted to rise significantly.

– Coordinating far-flung innovation activities:

“Global innovation network” has been designed to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration across geographic boundaries connecting Research and Development labs and local teams in different countries and serve as social infrastructures for diffusing knowledge from local hubs of innovation. Use of Web based knowledge management system and collabotauve technologies play a crucial role in building up global network. Practices of competitors and customer demand and expectations may further drive companies to signal their technological capability by using their collaborative tools.