ITS A GLOBAL CHARTBUSTER FOR INDIA:
Slowdown or not, India’s IT Inc. is literally on top of the world. The country’s top 5 IT companies are among the most profitable and have the highest market capitalisations among all the full-fledged IT services firms worldwide. According to a Nasscom analysis, Infosys is the most profitable among the world’s purely IT services companies, followed by HCL Tech, Satyam, TCS and Wipro. The No 6 slot is occupied by Cognizant, a US-based-India-centric company run by NRIs. ......
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?artid=25300604
This was the headlines today in Economic Times.But what we have failed to realise is that , we are still like vultures and jackals trying to live on the scrapes of meat left over by lions. We indeed did a great job a decade back by capitalising on the software boom and tapping the man power resource and talent India is blessed with , but I feel we are stagnating and worried only about quarter to quarter results.We are still dependent on the markets overseas, and if US catches cold we sneeze here.Its a pity that visionaries like Narayan Murthys , Premjis are still satisfied with outsourcing manpower and servicing the global major players.Have we ever heard of world class product labelled ’’Made in India’’? Even small countries not even as big as Kerala like Holland have giants like Philips, Nokia from Finland , Sweden (Ericsson) etc, but we are happy just to provide services to them and if demand drys up from them we are doomed.We are still beggars, and beggars cant be choosers, so whoever is ready to throw some junk work to be done by the nerds here, we are ready to roll out the red carpets for them and give a presendential welcome here.
Very few Indian companies invest in R & D.All they are worried is to strenghten their marketing team and get some projects , beg , barrow or steal does not matter how and maintain a healthy quarterly balance sheet .Even top players like Infosys, Wipro, HCL are least worried to invest in achieving self suffeciency or build their own products and market them . Infact many of these companies have competency centres called ’’Center of excellences’’(CoE’s) , which Narayan Murthy makes headlines in newspapers calling them as their R & D wings, but the main focus of these CoE’s is not to reserach or develop any new technologies, but just to hone up the skills of the engineers on the bench with the hot technology in demand in market , so that they can be productive if in case they get any new projects in that field.This also helps them in projecting to their prospective clients the availabilty of manpower with necessary skillset.These centres are also used as a showcase for the customers during their visit to India , where they are proudly taken through the guided tour of their so called R & D centres, and display of products which in reality is just a test experimental product developed by those on bench and which has little market value.The engineers working on these R & D projects are shifted out abruptly when a new project arrives from the client and these R & D projects are scrapped or some new person on bench is asked to take up these jobs.R & D projects are never given primary importance as client projects , because they are not revenue earners for the company, hence neither the engineer is interested in such projects nor the company.With such kind of an attitude we are never going to be innovators of new technolgy , but will remain ever as slaves catering to the demands of the overseas markets.
The strides made by the hard working CEO’s like Narayan Murthys in the past decades is praiseworthy , but hope they keep up the same zeal and visions to move forward and change their strategy to build their own competency, self suffeciency so that they may not have to depend on overseas markets to keep their balance sheet healthy and even for survival.I am emphasising on the top notch management of top 5 IT companies because they are the ones who has the resources to innovate and set new trends especially in testing times like now.Infact the marketing tink-tank with big degrees to their credit from top IIM’s are reduced to nothing but beggars with begging bowl , scouting for projects and cleints, very similar to our Eureka Forbes salesman back home.Infact they have the most difficult job of all in any of these servicing Indian companies.All the six-sigma , CMM level quality certifications are attained just to impress the clients(Ask the technical guys, they know nuts about any of these quality procedures, only the quality and marketing division knows about it).Infact the bottom line of all our companies is just to impress, impress and impress the clients to get more buisness. How long can Indian IT companies rely on outsourcing of cheap manpower as their primary source of revenue and be branded as technology solution providers?The hype of the brand image of Infosys and other companies as ’’global entities’’ is limited within Indian shores, because once we step out of country nobody would have ever heard of these companies or know about our CEO’s like Murthy’s , Premji’s.All these Indian companies are percieved as providers of cheap labour , which is labelled honourably as solution providers or technology consultants.
As for Nasscom, less said the better.It is like our UN, controlled and used by all the top IT companies to their own gains, propoganda to enhance their companies image and I wonder what the small companies are gaining from this umbrella organisation?Its a toothless body with no charter of its own , nor does it have any chalked out plans , very similar to any of our government organisations.
China is considered as our main competitors in world market, but now a days big 5 top IT companies are conducting feasibility study to open new development centres there , to provide services to Chinese companies like Huweii etc.Our companies have to shed the mindset of being just a servicing company to move forward .Unless the top honchos get rid of the slave mentality of just following in the footstep of others , there may come a time when we may say ’’Once upon a time there were Indian companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS etc which.....’’.