"India as a market is changing radically and the company is very excited about how India is contributing to Microsoft worldwide," is the word coming in from Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft.

"Our goal is to in fact commoditise digital technology. It is not profit for profit sake, it is profit ultimately coming from India Inc being successful," he said adding that they would do well in India, if India Inc - all the way from small business to large business did well.

“Customers for us are really partners who take technology from us to create their own technology. In fact, it is not about dependence on us, it is their ability to build their own independence using some of our input,” he said in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

Nadella won the India Business Leader Award (IBLA) for the 'Global Business Icon of the year'.

Below is the transcript of the interview

Q: Let me start by asking you about Microsoft’s plans for India in the coming decade, in terms of strategic importance, in terms of investments, hiring, innovation, draw out the roadmap for me for India?

A: It is great to be back in India and India is very important to us. Let us start with human capital we have, next to sort of Seattle and the Redmond area the the number of engineers we have in India is the second biggest centres. So we are very excited about how India is contributing to Microsoft worldwide.

However, India as a market is changing radically. If you sort of look back to the last ten years, the penetration of mobile and cloud has made it possible for the next ten years to perhaps be the time when every small business to large business is being transformed by technology.

Even this morning, when I was talking from Piramal Glass to what Reliance is doing across the board or what Apollo Hospitals has in fact built out a new model for cardiac issues, which is using Indian data to benefit the south Asian population worldwide. These are all amazing examples of how technology can make broad sectoral progress around economic and productivity.

Q: You spoke about the importance of India from a human capital perspective, but given the potential of the Indian economy as well as the way that you are seeing this play out from a digital transformation perspective, what is it going to mean in terms of revenues for Microsoft?

A: First of all, I think we will be only successful if India is successful. In fact one of the things that is super important to recognize in our business model is, we will do well in India, if India Inc, all the way from small business to large business does well because that is the fundamental thing. If digital technology is going to lead to local surplus -- when hospitals are becoming better at delivering healthcare with lower cost, when energy companies are becoming more efficient in making India more sustainable, when we retail companies here are going to be competitive in fact versus multinationals coming in, that is when we will succeed. So, our goal is to in fact commoditise digital technology if anything. It is not profit for profit sake, it is profit ultimately coming from India Inc being successful.

Q: In terms of regulatory disruption or regulatory headwinds, how much of a concern is the data localization aspect in India and globally the fact that we are possibly going to see a digital tax coming in at the end of this calendar year. Will that be a disruptor force as well?

A: One of the things that we should fully expect and in fact take privacy, privacy is a human right -- coming out of the European Union in GDPR General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) we effectively have regulation already, which is now going to be everywhere. Even in India we are going to take the same approach which is when we took even GDPR regulation, we did not just do it for Europe, in fact we took the subject rights and made it available worldwide. So, we are going to fully conform to the laws.

Already our investments we have made in our data center footprint with local data residency is a step in that direction. So, I fully expect us to both have more regulation whether it is around privacy, whether it is around ethics in artificial intelligence (AI), and even on taxation. The fundamental construct I believe in is, in every country you operate in, you pay taxes and you should and that is what we do.

In fact, we have already changed and I am very encouraged even by what OECD is trying to get done which is to come up with some consistent rules, that are worldwide rules and the tax reform that happens where we have I would say certainty, consistency, simplicity. But we fully expect to be paying taxes everywhere we operate.

Q: I want to pick up on something that you mentioned in your talk, and you said that you are in the process of trying to democratise technology. But that sort of lies in the face of conventional wisdom with the tech company saying that look we want everybody else to build their own tech intensity, the logic would have been that come to us because we are the most capable and we are going to help you build it out so how does that sort of work for you and how do you see this playing itself?

A: In fact that is going to be the key distinction. If you believe that every company going forward in every industry, irrespective of size is going to be a software company or a digital company, you have to believe in somehow democratising digital technology and making it a real factor of production. So a healthcare company will have software engineers.

In fact the interesting thing is even in India as we speak, 70 percent plus of the software engineering jobs are already outside of what is considered the tech industry. So, if anything our job as a platform company is to make those software engineers working across all the industries in India, more productive, more successful in using digital to change their own core business, right. How can they deliver better healthcare, how can the energy company be more efficient, public sector be more efficient that is really our core goal.

Q: What is that going to mean in terms of tangible action from Microsoft’s specifically? Are we going to see more collaboration, are we going to see more partnerships, what is it going to do in terms of determining the course of future M&A for you?

A: For us ultimately, in fact even in the keynote I just delivered it was sort of great to see the amazing examples, whether it is Reliance or Apollo Hospitals or Royal Enfield - the bike that I always dream one day I will have - all of these are using digital technology. But that is really what I look forward to seeing which is more and more think of digital as just an input, what you create - in fact I always say that customers for us are really partners who takes technology from us to create their own technology. In fact, it is not about dependence on us it is their ability to build their own independence using some of our input. That is really ultimately our mission.

Q: You said that you have introspected on the decade gone by and what concerns you is the narrow impact that technology has had and you would like it to be much more secular, diverse and broad-based. What is role of the corporation, what is the role of the government in being able to achieve that objective?

A: I think the way I look at it - first of all the last decade has been tremendous. As I said mobile revolution, cloud took off, consumer internet application so that is great, except it is still narrow in comparison to the full economy. What about agriculture, what about healthcare, what about energy and so on. To me that is what I look forward to in the next decade.

Here is the way I think about it - it is about companies, the civic society and government all working together. I mean that economic progress and social progress have to happen in tandem and they happen in tandem, when every constituent is coming together setting policy, being pushed to do the right allocation. So that one can have that broad spectrum because one of the other issues we have to deal with is – is the economic growth about equitable, take something like an agriculture sector in India, which employs a lot of people. It not only has to become more productive but we need to also make sure that the small farmer is not being crowded out. That ability – that is where the governments can play huge role.

Q: As a CEO on your dashboard today what are the key risks that you are looking out for and this trend that we are seeing – you are heading Microsoft, Adobe has Shantanu Narayen, IBM now has an Indian origin CEO, what do you make of the rise of Indian origin CEOs in the valley and beyond?

A: On the risks side, one of my hopes is that we actually have to confront – as a multinational CEO, I think about if we are not creating local surplus in every country in every community then we have no right to operate in that country and community. Therefore, staying true in our case, to our business model and our mission, when you come to India, it has to be India first. What are the small businesses we have made more productive, how have we made public sector in India more efficient. A large multinationals out of India more competitive globally – that’s ultimately the key performance indicator (KPI).

In terms of the rise of -- I will call it the Indian managers, I think it speaks to the human capital of this country. In fact, at some level somebody described this to me as it’s a numerator and we have a billion plus people and so 1/5th of the CEOs in the world someday should be Indian and if that’s the case then we have less representation.

First Published:Feb 24, 2020 7:46 PM IST