Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg
It seems that recently global C-suite executives have been visiting India more frequently than in the past. While IBM Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Virginia Rometty came to India in May, Cisco Chairman & CEO, John Chambers was in the country last month, and then in the first week of July, India welcomed Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Besides the visits of these important IT honchos, Google's Sunder Pichai is planning to visit India for a global launch later this year. It is also being speculated that Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella will visit the country by the end of the year. The visits of these biggies in India have given some hope that India is being seen once again as an investment centre.
During her first visit to India after becoming COO of the world's most popular social networking site Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg met Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi. She said that India is Facebook's second-largest and the fastest-growing market with the fastest internet connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region. It is of high priority for them. She also said that over $2-trillion Indian economy has immense potential to create jobs and drive growth, especially with its huge base of small and medium businesses (SMBs).”
As far as IBM’s Virginia Rometty’s India visit is concerned, she visited the country for the third time after her appointment as IBM’s CEO in 2012. She has announced the company’s plans to set up a new cloud data center in Bangalore. The new center will be part of Softlayer, the cloud storage company IBM acquired for $2 billion earlier this year.
Industry experts believe that these visits are symbolic of a conductive environment created for the investers to invest in the Indian market by foreign investors. India should use this as an opportunity to convert this interest into dollars and cents. However, it is difficult to say anything for now. Let time decide.
