Battered stocks, falling profits and ratings downgrades are hardly the characteristics of a powerhouse, let alone a global powerhouse.
However, despite the current crisis, Indian companies profiled in Nirmalya Kumar's new book, India's Global Powerhouses, will transform business and change the way the developed world sees India, the author predicts.
The book is a concise report into some Indian companies that have made large overseas acquisitions in recent years, or are otherwise affecting the global marketplace and forcing Western firms to take note.
Indian companies, once content with being the big fish in their home markets, have gone from being low-price bidders for mostly distressed assets to savvy investors in strategic foreign assets, they are not afraid to fight for, Kumar says.
The author, a professor of marketing and co-director of the Aditya Birla Centre at the London Business School, profiles a handful of well-known firms such as Infosys, Mahindra and Mahindra and the Tata Group, as well as more recent claimants to the title of global powerhouse, such as Hindalco, Suzlon and Marico.
There is a roll call of recent big-ticket acquisitions, including Tata Steel's $12 billion (Dh44bn) acquisition of Anglo-Dutch Corus, Hindalco's $6bn purchase of Canada's Novelis and Tata Motors' $2.3bn buyout of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.
As with any list, there are some omissions, including Indian drugmakers who are expected to change the generics landscape, and the Reliance groups, which are giants in the local market.
There is useful historical context too, including religion and culture of the pre-liberalisation era, the protectionist "Licence Raj", and the reforms of 1991 that led to rapid economic growth, increased competition and forced firms to shape up.
Based on interviews with founders and senior management, Kumar, and his collaborators in India, Pradipta Mohapatra and Suj Chandrasekhar, offer insight in a textbook format: While every big multinational has rushed in, India can safely be regarded as the "joint venture graveyard of the world".
But like a whodunit with good stuff at the end, the most important insights, given that events have clearly overtaken the book, come at the end, where Kumar illustrates the challenges that lie ahead of Indian firms, which even a year ago seemed to be invincible.
These include bureaucratic apathy, which means it can take 225 days to get a building permit. It also addresses infrastructure constraints including acute power shortages, a slow legal system, a need for innovation and a potentially crippling talent crunch, to which UAE readers can no doubt relate.
More tellingly, Kumar also warns about the need for companies to match ambition with capability in cross-border acquisitions; deals fuelled by easy liquidity can load a company with too much debt or dilute shareholders' equity, he warns.
For a cautionary tale, consider Tata Motors, inventor of the Nano – the world's cheapest car – is now struggling with a $2bn bridge loan and facing more ratings downgrades.
Still, the era of India as a major investor is here.
"There was a time when Westerners assumed that an Indian in the head office of a multinational or Western company was either an accountant or a computer nerd. Nowadays, that person is just as likely to be the boss," Kumar says.
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