"Finally, we should help developing nations like China and India curb their exponentially increasing consumption of oil and natural gas, which is driving world prices higher." - Governor Bobby Jindal, U.S. State of Louisiana

India is widely regarded as one of the world’s largest fuel consumers. Interestingly, it is India's rapid growth and huge population which has meant that fuel is devoured with such rigor, and often consumption needs cannot be met by the intermittent power supply. Equally, the erratic demand and supply of energy, combined with the use of an unsustainable energy source such as coal, has long been a problem, not only for India, but for many other countries as well.
 
However, India may have found a solution to its problem, and soon other countries may also follow this example. India has now opened a Solar Park, ‘half a billion dollars’ worth of solar-energy kit paid for by firms from all over the world. A million panels stretch as far as the eye can see’ [The Economist], in Gujarat, on the border of Pakistan. Its opening heralds a change in the attitude towards solar energy, which has in the past been seen as idealistic, costly, and an unpredictable method of producing energy. Equally, it denotes that firms are now taking the energy crisis as a problem which has—or will soon—greatly impacted their business. Similarly, one could argue that the best part of this scheme is that it takes one of India’s least appreciated commodities, the sun, and turns it into one of its greatest assets, moving forward in the energy market. Moreover, this move could not have come at a better time, with energy prices in India set to increase by 4% by 2015, and the cost of Solar power materials greatly falling.

Conversely, critics have suggested that the initiative is set to fail due to high costs ‘guaranteed high prices of 15 rupees for the first 12 years of operation to solar producers’ [The Economist], which has been set by the State Government. Equally, the high prices involved in this form of power may deter the mass of consumers. Moreover, innovation for many companies can be costly, cause anxiety over its reliability, and without any incentive to switch providers, many companies will be reluctant to participate in the move to cleaner energy.

Overall, the market for executive search in India is expanding, especially for expatriate executives who have certain skills and knowledge which are currently lacking from the talent pool. However, as I have previously suggested, the next generation of Indian executives will likely have the education, experience and training to fill the void. Furthermore, what this means in the energy market, is that one of the demands on executives in the coming years will be to solve and integrate into strategy a way or a place for sustainable energy supply, especially Solar power, as it could be possible that the massive investment made into this power supply will pay off, and we may see a massive shift in corporate energy supply.

The AESC has over 150 executive recruiters located throughout India, all with access to your BlueSteps career profile and CV.

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This article was written by Helen Langley of the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC).
 
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