– Contributed by Shweta Gulati

I recently attended a conference titled "London and India: Partners in Globalization". Its theme was "What does it take to succeed as a Global Business". It was held on Nov 20, 2007 at Hotel Shangri La.

It started with a welcome address by Ken Livingston, the mayor of London. He talked about how serious London is about attracting Global Investments and steps they are taking to encourage businesses from within the country and globally. The steps included revamping the social infrastructure to flexibility of regulatory frameworks.

There were presentations by an agency called Think London. Think London is the Foreign Direct Investment agency of London (a govt. agency) that connects global businesses to London. It works free of cost. It has helped companies like Infosys, Polaris, Wipra, HDFC, Yash Raj Films,  Punjab National Bank and few more familiar names to establish themselves in London. While these might be a few illustrious names they also help establish small and medium scale business to establish them in London.

Jitesh Gadhia from ABN Amro coordinated briefly highlighted the importance of raising Financial, Human and Intellectual Capital to establish a flourishing business in London or any other place.

Anuj Chande from Grant Thornton gave a wonderful presentation on methods of raising Financial Capital in London. Those methods included Private Equity, London Stock Exchange, Direct Listing, Global depository receipts and Debt Funding.

A presentation on "Structuring a global enterprise" from  Simon Collins from KPMG followed. It was again a content rich presentation with some food for thought in the end. It laid emphasis on reviewing strategic options, alignment with your vision, corporate governance, local choices, structuring of  a deal, execution of transactions, Greenfield /outsourcing and offshoring options and the likes.

A panel discussion on Intellectual Property and Branding followed. Christopher Rees from Herbert Smith highlighted the basics of Intellectual property, difference between Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights and how these instruments of IP can be used to generate revenues and create brands. He presented two case studies on Coca Cola and IBM and how they sue IP successfully for their benefit.

Wally Olins from Brand Consultants described how the power of a brand derives from a curious mix of how it performs functionally and represents itself emotionally. It was another stimulating presentation. The presentation highlighted the difference between product brands/environment brands/service brands etc. he also said that London is the global creative crucible and highly values creativity.

In the end a presentation from Madanjeet Singh, who is the MD of PNB followed which was largely an endorsement of Think London. It was basically a case study on market entry into London .He described in detail PNBS's market entry strategy for London and how Think London had been with them at every step.

All in all it was a great conference, very rich in content and very effective in knowledge dissemination.