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Request for Proposal

Research Project to Study Economic Growth and Job Creation
July 18, 2019

The Wadhwani Foundation (WF) is one of the world’s pre-eminent not-for-profit foundation focused on the creation of high-value jobs; meaning, a job with a salary that supports the basic needs of a family of four people. The WF is based in Silicon Valley, California, USA with major operations in India and a growing footprint across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Among the WF’s main initiatives is to promote reforms and appropriate government policies that can facilitate job growth. The WF undertakes this task by way of advocacy and evangelization of such policies leading to their adoption by the central and state governments. As part of this initiative, the WF has funded a ‘Wadhwani Chair’ at the Washington, DC, USA think-tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) for nearly a decade that focuses on economic reforms in India. The WF has also set-up an in-country policy office based in New Delhi, India.

With the recent Lok Sabha elections and a new government in New Delhi, the focus has increased for an action agenda to tackle the unemployment challenge that requires large scale job creation. Data on jobs is scarce, particularly as a large part of the Indian economy is in the informal and unorganized sectors. Going by the government’s own data, economic growth has been significant in recent years, and is expected to continue at 7% or higher in the foreseeable future.

Research Project Objectives, Scope & Terms of Reference

CSIS Wadhwani Chair has largely determined its policy on reform priorities through regular and direct engagement with business leaders/economists/trade bodies/thought leaders to determine business-level priority issues important to growth. But as the new government led by the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi assumes office and recognizing that job growth is one of the top priorities for both central and state governments, WF would prioritize policy reforms where business growth and job creation are moving in sync.

As a first step towards this endeavor, WF has decided to initiate a research project to understand the gap between business growth and job creation in India and use this gap analysis to re-shape its policy reform priorities.

To build out this new set of policy reform priorities, the CSIS Wadhwani Chair would like to hire an economic consulting or research firm (hereinafter referred as ‘firm’) to take on a project that addresses the following terms of reference:

1. Generate baseline data for overall and high-value jobs (defined as jobs that start at ~ INR 12K/month per person), in absolute numbers as well as job growth (in %) in increments of one, three, and five years in India by sector (industry vertical), state, size of the enterprise (SME, Large, etc.) and occupation (trade or job roles). Data sources must take cognizance of NSSO, EPFO, PLFS, YouGoV Surveys, ASI, Mary Meeker, CMIE, job posting websites, etc.
2. Repeat the above for the size of India’s economy (in absolute revenue terms in INR) and growth (%) in increments of one, three and five years by sector (industry vertical), state, size of the enterprise (SME, Large, etc.)
3. Project out job creation in increments of one, three, and five years in future for the sectors (industry verticals), state, enterprises (SME, Large, etc.), occupation (trades / job roles), etc.
a. The output of the projected CAGR in revenue and jobs needs to be presented for each sub- segment and also for different buckets of employee strength such as 30-100, 100-300, 300- 1000, and >1000; and for revenue buckets of $100k-$1 Mn, $1-3Mn, $3-10Mn, $10-30Mn,
$30-50Mn, and above >$50 Mn.
b. The output must outline underlying assumptions and job growth drivers and the market models the firm has deployed in making projections linking to assumptions and the forecasting techniques.

Once these priority job-creating states, sectors, enterprise size are highlighted by the firm, the CSIS Wadhwani Chair and the Wadhwani Foundation’s Policy Office, New Delhi Office would identify the specific policy reforms and shape appropriate advocacy measures, ensuing events, meetings, publications and other instruments to pursue adoption of these data-driven reform priorities by governments (central and states / UTs) through legislation, cabinet approvals, government orders and / or other means.

Timelines

• July 27, 2019: Firms to seek clarifications from WF with respect to this RFP, if any, in writing
• July 31, 2019: WF to respond to firms seeking valid clarifications
• August 2, 2019: Bids due from firms
• August 9, 2019: Winning bid finalized
• August 15, 2019: Firm to establish WF’s concurrence on the detailed list of sectors (industry verticals) and sub-segments to be covered under this research project
• September 10, 2019: Interim presentation to WF with the proposed recommendations
• September 20, 2019: Final project due from the firm, highlighting:
o Business Growth in key sectors (industry verticals) in previous five years broken down by states
o Job growth in these key sectors (industry verticals) in the previous five years broken down by states, size of the enterprise (SME, Large, etc.), etc.
o Potential job growth in these sectors/states over the next five years – baseline without new reforms. Firm may broadly recommend the sectors that could grow the most with the stimulus of targeted reforms like labor flexibility, land acquisition, simplified approval process, access to basic industrial services like electricity, etc.

• September 27, 2019: Rick M. Rossow and Jayant Krishna would use the final report to create a map of the sectors, states, and policy reforms likely to yield the greatest increase in high-value jobs over next five years.
• Email IDs for seeking clarifications on RFP and subsequent submissions would be rrossow@csis.org and jayant.krishna@wfglobal.org

RFP Response

Respondents to this RFP should include the following elements in your proposal:
• Firm’s credentials and experiences with similar studies
• Profiles of similar studies undertaken by the firm with customer details
• Proposed approach and methodology for the research project
• Firm’s revenue and full time staff strength for last three years
• Short CVs of key professionals proposed to be deployed for the research project
• Firm’s total professional fee (excluding GST) proposed for the research project
• 15% advance against bank guarantee within two weeks of initiation, 15% after interim presentation and 70% after the final presentation, report and other deliverables subject to full satisfaction of WF
• Suggested timeline, within the September 20, 2019 overall study deadline for a final report

Other Terms

• All study deliverables, including, reports, presentations raw data, market models, files in Excel / other tools would be the sole Intellectual Property of WF and cannot be used by the firm for any purpose without the approval of WF in writing. WF would own all Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) associated with the research project by way of the approach, methodology, recommendations and all other deliverables.
• For shortlisting the firm, WF would use the ‘Quality and Cost Based Selection’ (QCBS) process.
• The decision of WF on this research project or any aspect of it would be final and binding on the firm(s).
• Legal disputes, if any, would be subject to jurisdiction of courts in Bengaluru, India.