The MNC paradox: How multinationals are shaping India’s growth journey

WHEN YOU SPEAK to multinational corporations (MNCs) doing business in India, most of them are keen to position themselves as essentially ‘Indian’ companies, despite their foreign ownership. When we launched Fortune India’s MNC 500 list last year — the first such listing of the biggest multinationals operating in India — the recurring theme was how the MNCs are keenly aligning themselves with India’s growth ambition and, in many cases, helping power it. As we bring you the second edition of the MNC 500, that theme continues. And despite a challenging global business environment and geopolitical turmoil, MNCs are a major part of the story of Corporate India. India is a market that more and more MNCs see as vital to their overall growth. Whether it is in manufacturing or in services, the 1.4-billion-plus demographic advantage that India has as a market is impossible to ignore. An aspirational population, increasingly getting tech savvy and demanding the best products, can only be good news for those global majors that have businesses in India. And as the country’s per capita income grows, things can only become more profitable for MNCs that get their India strategies right. But make no mistake, despite all the positives of the Indian market, it is not an easy one to crack. That’s because the diverse nature of the population and the varying preferences as one traverses the length and breadth of the country presents its own challenges for MNCs. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy which can work for India. It is many markets, many clusters rolled into one gigantic, lucrative opportunity. That’s also what comes through as you dive deeper into the list. The Top 500 MNCs listed this year collectively clock a staggering ₹40 lakh crore ($435 billion) in revenue, and ₹2.48 lakh crore ($27 billion) in profits. But scratch the surface and you see the bumpiness. The Top 10 alone accounts for as much as 29% of the total revenue, and 34% of the total profit pool, showing how concentrated the revenue and profit distribution is at the top of the heap. Check out the listed universe within the 500 — the 102 listed entities in the list — and the picture is one of extreme concentration. The Top 5 listed firms comprise 51% of the total revenue of the listed companies on the MNC 500 list, and 47% of their cumulative profits. While the big boys have played well in India, there are several others which, despite being in the country for years, have not been able to crack the India code. As V. Keshavdev, who helmed this list, writes in his opening essay: “The path to scaling in India presents unique challenges that even global giants struggle to navigate.” And that is the India paradox for the MNCs — while some have scaled and grown, others have struggled to find the right formula to crack the Indian market. Meanwhile, the last few weeks saw frenetic activity on the economic front. Two mega trade deals — one with the European Union and the other, much-awaited one, with the U.S. — brought cheer to the markets and the business community, which showered lavish praise on the Modi government for navigating the global economic challenges deftly. And then there was the Union Budget, the ninth presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, which stuck to the fiscal consolidation path even while laying the foundation for a resilient India. The India story just got more compelling.

The MNC paradox: How multinationals are shaping India’s growth journey

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