IT Cities-All It Takes Is A Collective Will

State governments should provide better infrastructure for the

growth of IT

Speaking

at a CII Seminar on outsourcing at Indore, dynamic secretary of the state

(Industries), Raghav Chandra announced that state's intention is to follow the

footsteps of West Bengal and Rajasthan governments to position itself as the

next logical destination for IT and BPO companies.

The preparation of

Indore probably could even put the infrastructure intensive planning of Chinese

cities such as Shenzhen and Pudong to shame. The Crystal IT Park has everything,

which makes a project a huge success. Two impeccably designed buildings within a

25 acre campus offer adequate scope for campuses and smaller development

centers, with greenery and educational institutions adjoining it. What more

could a potential investor want? Also a supportive city Municipal Corporation

chief had promised all the support it needs to make work and life harmonious for

entrepreneurs willing to establish a base in the city.

A couple of years ago,

a similar seminar was held in Gwalior, where young Jyotiraditya Scindia joined

forces with the then chief minister, Digvijay Singh to fly in IT chieftains and

get their commitment to the city-a scene oft repeated now in Kolkata. Here the

high profile duo of chief minister Buddhadeb Bhatacharya and IT minister

Manabendra Singh ably backed by the ebullient Dr Gautama. The three have pulled

out all the stops in the last couple of years to get two throbbing IT parks.

All it takes is a

collective will to make a city flourish! The aspiring states should also

consider (which is possible) attracting the potential investors. Even as the red

carpet is being rolled out for the bigger players, a supportive ecosystem

promoting growth of local entrepreneurs needs to be created. There are actually

a large number of young entrepreneurs who have set up small software companies

in the city attempting to find their place under the sun.

Can they be supported

to grow and find their wings? They can get the necessary support-from the

government, willing to open up e-governance projects for them, by local industry

that can engage the services of the local IT providers by forming clusters of

manufacturing companies, which can be supported by these firms. Bigger firms can

adopt some of these smaller ones to provide them the methodology and frameworks

to execute software projects for business in the state in a better way.

All this will ensure

that an entrepreneurship culture is fostered within the city and the Crystal IT

Park in Indore itself could be one pioneering effort to make the big and small

players coexist-both in search of a common dream!

But there is an

emerging threat to the industry in general and to the smaller IT destinations

particularly that can derail the IT bandwagon even before the outsourcing train

steams into Indore, Nagpur or Vizag in the near future. It is the war for

talent, which is raging all over the country. At the conference of Executive

Recruiters Association (ERA) held in Bangalore recently, I made an appeal for a

true spirit of partnership to emerge between IT CEOs and resourcing agencies.

This would ensure that there is a spirit of planning and joint risk taking

rather than a customer-vendor relationship, that members of ERA respect a

company's need to have joinees stay with them for a reasonable period of time.

The various associations work together to educate and counsel the volatile

members of the IT community about best practices in job seeking and job

changing.

Most industry players are suffering because of the

propensity of well educated professionals to jump at the drop of a hat, very

often lured by rapacious head hunters. Can we all settle down and build this

industry in a spirit of cooperation or will we work to bring down the industry

from the pedestal, which we have reached after years of tireless effort?