Palmisano was delivering a keynote address to the Confederation of Indian Industry's CEO Forum in New Delhi today. He outlined three forces, which determine where work flows in a global marketplace: "economic", "expertise" and "openness".

The third force Palmisano stressed on was openness. "To cause work to flow to you - to your nation, to your region, to your city - you must have an attractive business environment and increasingly a vital element of that is "openness", he added. Palmisano was referring not just to open systems and technology standards, but also open trade and a balanced approach to intellectual property as well as government policies that encourage and protect the broadest participation in the economy and society.

"Put together, you get an open, stable business environment that provides a level playing field, which stimulates competition, innovation and the free flow of goods and ideas," he said.

Following the keynote, a panel comprising Sunil Bharti Mittal, president designate, CII and chairman and group CEO, Bharti Enterprises, Jalaj Dani, vice president, Asian Paints and Arun Maira, senior advisor, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) joined Palmisano for a discussion on how businesses could follow their global aspirations.

Outlining the key to achieving global aspirations, Mittal stressed the need for corporates to connect with people and society to be successful and maintain sustainable growth. Big corporates like Infosys, Wipro and Bharati are doing well because they connect with people, he pointed out.

Referring to SMEs, he said while large corporates manage to deal with the complex architecture of global integration, SMEs find it difficult to do so.

Dani of Asian Paints said social or emotional integration was very important for a company to be successful. A successful corporate always wins the trust of people by building relationship and meeting the customers' need. One must be successful in the home market to be successful in the global market, he added.

Sharing notes from his book Shaping The Future: Aspirational Leadership in India and Beyond. Maira of BCG said, " Fundamental changes are taking place in a society which we do not notice or do not understand its implications, therefore, a new architecture of organisation which enables people to be included and a leadership which is participatory not dominating is required for an enterprise to be successful."

In his closing comments, Mittal, who moderated the discussions, said, "The combination of technology, demographics, expanding education, regulatory change, and a shift to a services-based economy has produced something genuinely new: a global platform for work and India is and can continue to benefit from in this global marketplace."

Mittal also referred to the union government's efforts on rural connectivity and said 95 per cent of our country will be connected under telecom network within two years and it will give a platform to companies like IBM to connect with the rural population of our country.