Since 1990, Indian regulations opened their long awaited protective regime and allowed foreign players. The government also began undertaking unprecedented governance reforms to attract the easy accessibility to global capital markets (Afsharipour, 2009). 

    Unlike their western counterparts, the governance reforms were spearheaded by corporate India who really wanted to have the best practices and be competitive in the world market.

But inspite of increasing country competitiveness ranking, we hardly see Indian firms in the global 500 (the no. is stagnant for past decade). Its not enough to be competitive in manufacturing or services but to rather have best governance practices. 

Very interesting question. Since we know that trends in Global500 are not at all satisfactory for firms of Indian origin (FIOs) (for details, see IJGBC article,  link given below), I suggest you sharpen your question after understanding questions such as:

• Are there many markets that are really global?
• Do many FIOs have resources to play in such global markets?
• If not, will it not be better to think of select international markets?

Enjoy deep thinking for better questions.

Article Break-out for Competitiveness of Indian Firms: Context, Need...

Thanks for sharing thought provoking questions for further refinement of the existing research question.Would go through the suggested paper also.

Arunima,

This Caribbean perspective may offer some insights

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299747565_Towards_a_talent-driven_outward-oriented_globally-competitive_SME_framework_Discussion_Paper

Technical Report Towards a talent-driven outward-oriented globally-competitiv...