All Aboard the Titanic?

The US economy slows down and unemployment touches the double-digit markWhats new? The European Union might be grinding to a halt and even break upHo Hum! The rupee breaches 52 to the dollarwow! The Indian economy grows less than 7% in Q2hey is that an iceberg out there?

The reason why we should all start becoming a little afraid, even in the continuing vibrancy of the software exports industry is very clear. Our own home ground where much of the work gets done, which has seen the IT sector as an aspiration point for much young talent and which has worked both with and without the Government to continue on its relentless march to global supremacy, may now be under some stress if the current political and economic morass continues for too long.

There are three reasons to worryfirst, that a weak growth scenario might deepen the divide that exists between sections of our society and create social problems in places where our industry seeks to expand in future. Second, a runaway inflation will do little to keep overall costs under control and bottom lines intact. And third, the domestic mark, both in Government and the private sector, which had shown some signs of life, may again disappear into the quicksand of economic decline. None of these, one could argue, would have a cataclysmic impact on industry fortunes but would surely not be a happy environment for incumbents to continue high double-digit growth and entrepreneurial firms in the product and e-commerce space to build scalable business models for the future.

While any expectations of our small industry coming to the rescue of the country might be a story of the tail trying to wag the dog, there is much that we can do to keep the iceberg away from our ship or at least shrink it to a proportion where we can once again get away with a rumble as we did indeed in 2008. An imperative is to avoid any acts that would disturb the confidence of the people who work for us and the customers who depend on us for their continued success. In fact this may well be the time to invest rather than reduce expenses. Companies should invest more in their people and prepare them with better skills for the new technological challenges like cloud, mobility, and social media. The industry should invest more in future revenue streams and success stories like entrepreneurial start-up product and e-commerce companies. And, associations like CII and Nasscom can play a match-maker role of bringing potential vendors and customers together, create markets and investment themes to make capital freely available for entrepreneurs and encourage more information technology investments by the Government and the private sector.

This is an interesting phaselet us all be watchful and respond positively!