My Friend Gokul

Ten years ago, a gentleman called out of the blue and introduced himself as a

US citizen, and a great friend of the Indian IT industry. His name-Gokul

Aggarwala, known to many of us in the industry as a staunch supporter of Indian

IT, and, today, a person I am privileged to count as a close friend and

supporter.

Starting from very humble roots in the Steel city of Jamshedpur, where he and

his brother had set up an engineering factory, Gokul, through sheer intellect

and hard work, is today the embodiment of the successful American dream-with a

wonderful house on the Pacific Ocean, outside Los Angeles, and an extremely

accomplished family. On the professional front, Gokul has not only built a very

successful export business, he has also been an IT strategy consultant to the

Governments of El Salvador, Columbia, Korea, and is seen as an expert in IT as

well as Latin America.

Ganesh Natarajan His confidence in his own abilities almost borders on arrogance, which enables him to see a better way when faced with ordinary problems

While all these stellar achievements might give a lesser mortal enough

laurels to rest on, the innovator in Gokul is never satisfied. We had worked

together on a significant project in a customer support center of AXA in the UK,

where an intelligent Knowledge and Learning framework was deployed to transform

the effectiveness of hundreds of call center employees through an integrated

skills development and knowledge management framework. Those early successes in

working at the leading edge of consulting and technology have today motivated

Gokul to rethink the entire approach to Business Process Outsourcing in key

sectors, and his ideas on process optimization could provide the much needed

adrenalin that an industry, battered by rampant attrition and fraud imbroglios,

could use to elevate its status to that of a true knowledge provider and

optimizer.

What drives individuals like Gokul Aggarwal and what can we all learn from

him? First is the deep-rooted confidence and pride in Indian intellectual

capabilities that feels slighted when it sees bright Indian professionals

deployed in "techno-coolie" roles. The second is the confidence in his

own abilities that almost borders on arrogance, which enables him to see a

better way when faced with ordinary problems. And, sometimes, there is a third

trait too-which is the drive to innovate and move out of the "better

sameness" approach that sees so many companies blindly worship the ISO and

SEI CMM process capability-nothing wrong with that if Innovation is not

sacrificed at the altar of process adherence!

With the success of Indian Manufacturing companies-Bharat Forge, Bajaj

Auto, Thermax, Crompton Greaves, which are becoming forces to reckon with in the

global market; the opportunities that Indian Pharma majors like Dr Reddy's,

Ranbaxy, Matrix and Nicholas Piramal are chasing to accelerate research and new

product development cycles; and of course even new areas like Medical Tourism-the

world has begun to realize that high quality Indian capabilities are not just

restricted to Java programming.

Finally, a pitch for the Indian way of life which should encourage many

Indians in America to stop sitting on the fence and come back home. Chatting

with friends about the activities of the NASSCOM Innovation forum, my Doctoral

work in IIT on Knowledge Management Maturity, the new book on Inspiration that

we're writing, and the successes of Zensar in new markets and innovative

frameworks, the oft repeated refrain came up: Where do you find the time?

Sitting here on a plane, tapping away at this column, one does wonder if this

country had not provided the kind of manpower support that enables so many tasks

to be delegated that the Western world has to do themselves-like cooking,

housekeeping, repairs and maintenance, and dropping kids to school-could many

of us find so much time for our intellectual endeavors? Live life to the fullest-the

Indian way!

The author is deputy chairman & MD of Zensar and a member of NASSCOM's

Executive Council for 2005-07 Ganesh

Natarajan