NASSCOM 2003–AN INDUSTRY REVIVES

Nasscom 2003, the software industry’s annual event which has come to assume

so much importance over the years proved to be a truly star studded event this

year with the who’s who of the Indian Software industry rubbing shoulders with

a galaxy of global clients, academicians, and research agencies. A rather low

key launch event was brought to life by a unique Q&A with industry doyen

Narayan Murthy who gave the right advice to all young software companies looking

for their place in the sun–"Come up with a compelling value proposition,

assemble a great team and think big"–there is no need for every firm to

want to be an Infosys or Wipro, all they need is a different and unique point of

view!

Ganesh Natarajan

This sentiment was echoed in one of the main sessions of the conference which

brought together the outsourcing chieftains of Citigroup, AMEX, Deutsche Bank

and JP Morgan Chase to describe their own outsourcing strategy and share pearls

of wisdom with the large audience of Industry CEOs and CEO wannabes. And Jan

Eric, the plain spoken AMEX chief rightly said "If you don’t have

something different to offer, don’t waste my time, but if you do I’m always

willing to listen. " All this came as music to the ears of all those who

are trying to build something unique in the industry and hopefully we will see a

handful of unique value propositions in the years to come. What is probably not

so good news is the hue and cry that has been raised in the recent past over the

issue of job losses on account of outsourcing. When I was sitting with a

collaborator in Florida a few days ago, the company CEO showed me the article in

a business magazine with the headline "Is your job next" that clearly

echoed the fears of many. The release of an industry research report predicting

that over three million US services jobs contributing to over a hundred billion

dollars of salary will move to India, the Philippines, and China over the next

dozen years, hasn’t done much to assuage these fears either. A very

interesting panel discussion chaired by Nandan of Infosys where I had the

opportunity to speak threw up a number of ideas on how industry structures, in

the outsourcing source and destination countries could substantially change over

the years and the many discussions in the parallel ITeS and BPO track of the

conference reinforced the fact that outsourcing is here to stay.

Many ideas on handling the job loss concerns came from the customers

themselves. One global major showed an extremely well produced video describing

the real India behind the stereotypes of the Taj Mahal and poverty that is so

prevalent in the Western world. The stress on productivity improvement with

resultant profitability increases of the outsourcing companies, the

opportunities for reskilling and moving to higher value adding jobs in their own

country, the old maxim that work always moves to the lowest cost location–the

arguments are many but at the end of the day, the best way, as the CIO of

Deutsche Bank said, is to communicate, communicate, communicate, and ensure that

the benefits of outsourcing are appreciated by all corporate and individual

stakeholders.

There is a need to focus the industry’s attention firmly on this

opportunity so that the entire country can present a single face to the world

and make the prediction that 70% of these outsourced jobs will come to India,

come true. Let us encourage the US to reduce the H1B visas instead of worrying

about evaporating body shopping opportunities and help small software shops to

participate in the outsourcing opportunity by providing training in offshore

development methodologies, project management and quality assurance and testing

on a country wide basis. Organizations like NASSCOM can play a major role in

making this a countrywide movement.

Finally, three images of NASSCOM 2003 will remain in people’s minds for a

long time–the commitment of IT Secretary, Rajeev Ratna Shah to make domestic

software usage grow in the country, the packed halls of the ITeS track while

empty seats were visible at all times in the traditional IT Services track, and

of course the sight of a dozen IT CEOs walking the ramp with a bevy of glamorous

models at the CEO Fashion Bytes show. Softwear or Software, this is a great

industry to be in and I am sure every participant at NASSCOM 2003 will be

cheering Kiran Karnik and his indefatigable team for having put up a truly great

show!

Ganesh Natarajan



The author is the global CEO of Zensar Technologies