Leading the Leaders

What is it that separates truly great leaders from the scores of wannabes in the IT industry, not just in India but also worldwide? Is it their charisma, their people skills, their technology wizardry or managerial prowess? It could be all of these, but actually, it is none of these. It is the ability to see many years into the future, to identify the potential and the possibilities that lie beyond the horizons of easy opportunism and find ways and means to convert vision into actual results. A true visionary in the Indian IT firmament is Fakirchand Kohli, whom many of us fondly refer to as the Bhishma Pitamah of the Indian IT Industry. It is a matter of great joy and pride for the entire industry that the Government of India has honored this legendary figure with the ‘Padma Bhushan’ award this year.

I have never ceased to be amazed by the futuristic thinking of FC Kohli and a recent interaction on a CNN Talk Show is a case in point. In a show where the hostess was trying to get the two of us to comment on the industry trend towards low complexity IT enabled services, Kohli waxed eloquent on what he felt was the real opportunity for the Indian IT sector — the hardware opportunity. Classifying the opportunity into the design and fabrication areas, he made a compelling case for Indian engineering talent to be involved in providing solutions at the design stage, leaving the fabrication to be done in any other market, including China. In a country where 18 year olds once made a beeline for software training, are now lining up to become call center operators, he felt the real opportunity lies in training thousands of young brains in Microelectronics to give this segment of the industry a big boost.

The truth in this argument cannot be exemplified better than in the pronouncements made by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji during his recent visits to New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Speaking with pride on China having acquired the # 1 status in the hardware sector, he advised Indian software majors to join forces with their Chinese hardware counterparts to form a compelling hardware-software force. One should ponder on how China attained leadership in just a few years in a sector where India has been present since the 70s without doing very much except handing over the hardware sector on a platter to the multinationals. And how long will it take for China to realize that the software sector too, at least the low cost programming aspect, is easy to replicate if they it is able to train a multitude of programmers in English and coding skills? Will China even need or ask for Indian firms as partners? This is the time when we have to heed the advice of visionaries like FC Kohli and forge an ambitious Government-industry partnership to progress in the hardware sector.

Areas for future leadership



Leadership in any industry segment is rarely an accident. Rather, it is the result of a clear vision, a strategic thrust at the Government, industry and individual level to act on the vision and of course, the sustenance needed to make any long term vision a reality. China is a case in point, not only for its progress in consumer electronics and hardware, which is a recent accomplishment, but also for its systematic approach to dominance in the garment manufacturing area. No wonder that half the clothes hanging in the showrooms of New York and San Francisco tend to have the ‘Made in China’ tag. The cynics will point to Government subsidies and poor quality as indicators of a bust that is likely to hit the country and its current supremacy, but the confidence that Zhu Rongji displayed in meetings with Indian politicians, bureaucrats and industry bigwigs is not the type that will evaporate in times of adversity.

We in India, need to be clear on where the IT opportunities lie and make a concerted attempt to go after them. The ‘flavor of the month’ syndrome, which saw medical transcription in the 90s and now call centres, biotechnology and bioinformatics threatening to dislodge IT Services from the pedestal of being India’s tomorrow, will have to be dispensed with in favor of investing for the long term. Let the industry leave posturing and grandstanding to the politicians and focus on the essentials needed to sustain the excellent early work done by TCS and a few others in software outsourcing. 

China cannot and will not displace India if we focus on building capabilities in SEI CMM led quality process capabilities and the Philippines will not be better suited for large ERP implementations if Indian companies focus on adding value through a better understanding of the domain of the customer. Despite the temptation to expand through low cost services like call centers, Indian companies need to move up the value chain and provide end to end services from business process reengineering to work flow optimization and information architecture development.

All this of course, will call for a new caliber of visionary leadership across the IT industry in general and the software and training services sectors in particular. There is still a concern that while global economies may be turning around, the revival could take the better part of 2002. Industry CEOs will have to treat the next six months as a test of leadership skills, where short term profit imperatives will have to be weighed against the need to invest in long term growth. 

Leaders will also have to choose from an array of options. Should an industry CEO invest in people, technologies and intellectual property building or buy into an existing organization to jump-start an entry into a new vertical or horizontal opportunity area? Is it better to widen the geographic spread to mitigate territory risks or deepen the market penetration

through additional products and services offerings to an existing geography? 

And finally, an anecdote on the leadership style of FC Kohli: One of the founders of TCS was reminiscing recently about a conversation in the early days–FCK apparently told his young team that he would designate many of them as managers but would continue to take sole responsibility for managing the growth forays of the organization in its early years. Whether this anecdote is true or not, it does exemplify the need of the hour even today, in organizations small and large in tough economic times — leaders have to lead from the front. As Michael Hammer once said, be prepared to be Generals in the war for global market share, readily carry the wounded along on the journey to success but also be prepared to shoot the dissenters. Having spent many hours with FC Kohli, one hopes that he and others of his ilk will continue to be Field Marshals for the industry for many more decades, providing inspiration to successive generations of leaders to take the Indian IT industry to global supremacy. 

The author is deputy chairman and managing director of Zensar Technologies and the global CEO of Zensar. 

He can be reached at ganesh@dqindia.com