Billion Dollar Babies?

The importance of quality certifications put into perspective,

the discussion moved on to the path the next—tier companies should chart to

scale up, get global, and register in the $5 bn club. India's big guys don't

get engaged into billion dollar deals, the way IBM or EDS would do, said Pawan

Kumar, chairman of vMoksha and chairman, Nasscom Quality Forum. The obvious

question then: What should they do to engage into these deals?

Quality processes are not the driver here. As far as competence

goes, except for perhaps TCS, no company in India has demonstrated the

capability to handle large, complex processes. In a large project, by

definition, one will run into problems that processes don't solve. One will

run into problems he wouldn't have seen before. "The bottomline is that

you need to innovate, you need to be more creative. That is the single biggest

bottleneck for large Indian companies. To clear this, they need investment in

R&D. That's something not done so far," Prof Pankaj Jalote of IIT

Kanpur informed.

Dr Bill Curtis of Borland said the issue is that India has never

managed anything this big before: "So, you don't understand how to

control it. Processes are built up of smaller things. If you go outside that for

bigger processes, you lose control."

His suggestion drew much brainstorming and applause. "If

you wanted to take on bigger process, you got to have a management who is going

to do it. You will have to grow it to a certain level of experience. So, partner

with someone who has already handled big projects and can train you. IBM is not

going to help you; it is competing with you. But you are not competing with

Lockheed Martin. They run large projects and have management and infrastructure

capability. You will have to find a way to partner with such companies to

transition to large—scale projects," he advised.

Any project has two dimensions-management and engineering. CMM

was earlier heavily focused on management, so a lot of Indian processes are

heavily focused on management. But there may be deficiencies in the engineering

part, which can't be scaled up by partnering unless the partner brings in

engineering skills, Pankaj said. "You got to build those skills then. We

don't do embedded systems or real—time systems too much, and that is where

you require R&D," he added.

Bill agreed that in the software world there is a shortage of

application knowledge. India has to rapidly build up that experience and

knowledge base. It needs to have workforce practices in place to accelerate the

pace of gaining application knowledge, in addition to engineering knowledge. In

saying so, Bill touched a huge issue-managing the growth of workforce and

skill growth.

Prof Pankaj Jalote , IIT Kanpur "The bottomline is that you need to innovate, you need to be more creative." Abhay Kelkar , Accenture Delivery India Center "Understanding the customer's business much more deeply is something organizations need to focus on much more, to get bigger business." Pawan Kumar , chairman of vMoksha and chairman Nasscom Quality Forum "Software professionals in the country are happy to remain in technology, versus moving to domain. Is there an option to get domain experts from other industries?"

Accenture india Delivery Center's Abhay Kelkar said his

company is focusing on business transformation. So, focusing on the outcomes of

a customer, understanding his business much more deeply is something

organizations need to focus on much more to get bigger business.

Doing it Differently



Earlier the panel had discussed the issue of innovation, and the increasing

criticism that Indian tier 1 companies don't spend enough on this front. The

problem, it emerged, was of domain knowledge. Capturing it is the key. And,

Indians fortunately have enough means.

Take this bit from Bill: "I have always told US companies

that once you outsource all of your software work to India, you outsource all

knowledge because all business logic is in the software. What will Indians need

you for later? You work for five telecom companies, you will know more about

telecom systems than any single telecom company. This is the case with the

Indians. They have learnt all this and can now break off and build their own

application packages and go back to sell it in the US and Europe."

But since domain knowledge focus is still not very high, what

could companies do to change this? Bill's solution is-systems analysis.

But Pawan Kumar pointed out that India never talked about

business analysis before, never had a career in business analysis. And, that

there was a need to look at this gap: "Our experience indicates that

software professionals in the country are happy to remain in technology, versus

moving to domain. Is there an option to get domain experts from other

industries?"

The parting shot was fired by Pankaj, who stressed that

innovation won't happen until there is a mindset change. "Innovation is

not trying to understand an existing thing," and he added, "It won't

happen by working in the same structure. We are way too focused on delivery of

projects. The customer-focus is coming in the way. We have to grow out of the

business model into something beyond."

Unfortunately, innovation in R&D has a lead time of 5 to10

years. And since listed companies have q-o-q pressures, perhaps only bodies like

Nasscom can drive home the importance of investment in innovation for future

growth. Companies need to get new ideas now, as five years hence, some could be

billion dollar babies.

Goutam Das