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The New Friend

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DQI Bureau
New Update

If anyone has doubts about the great times Indian software and service

companies have in the days to come, a lot of catching up needs to be done on

their reading.

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Let's begin with newspapers and magazines. And I am not referring to just

Indian newspapers and magazines that are full of stories on India becoming a

crucial destination for outsourcing software development and business processes.

I am talking of the Newsweek, the Businessweek, the Time, the Economist-the

names which matter. And more importantly, the names who lead and mould opinions.

If these top of the line magazines are writing about how well India is doing,

how Fortune 500 MNCs in the US and Europe are sending more and more work to

India, they must have based this on inputs from global business leaders. These

magazines are giving a much more broader picture of the situation, and playing a

very influencing role in bringing a lot of work to India. Similarly, if one

reads the Wallstreet Journal, or the International Herald Tribune, and Finacial

Times, there is hardly a day when there is no big story on India.

Beyond magazines, if one wants to go in-depth, I would strongly recommend a

book which is making waves these days, and sits on the table of lots of CEOs and

business leaders. Journalist Thomas Freidman's new book, "The World Is

Flat." It is an eye-opener. He talks of how countries like India with a big

and growing, talented and highly entrepreneurial pool, are now aspiring to be

countries with a 36-hour day. This means that they have the capability and

willingness to stretch, and go out of their way to serve the customers. And

qualities like these are giving them big advantages over big and advanced

nations, and therefore the barriers are now being broken and the world, as a

playing field, is being leveled, or flattened. Freidman strengthens his argument

on the emergence of countries like India that will grab bigger and bigger market

share, and keep moving up the business value chain, by adding that some

countries like the US are not ready to grab this opportunity, and some like

France do not want to.

IBRAHIM AHMAD
Just a year back, an Indian traveling abroad would wait for weeks before he could spot a few lines of some news about India
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International newspapers and magazines are not just informing their readers

about the high quality work that is being done in India. To make the case

stronger for India there are stories on the hiring plans of Indian companies,

indirectly indicating that if your job is under threat in the US, you have a

chance in India. Actually, I came to know through one such newspaper that most

mid-scale BPO or software services companies are hiring 50 to 100 people every

month. The reporter, in his article, stresses that "Obviously all this

hiring is not happening for the benches. There is lots of work on hand, and

there is a lot more in the pipeline."

And if anybody says all the opportunity is only in exports, there is news for

him too. A prominently placed story in another leading newspaper that I got hold

of on a flight from Frankfurt to San Francisco revealed that from the 1st of

July this year, all packaged but perisheable food items in Maharshtra will need

to give a help-line number. This is the first step and may actually get

implemented not from 1st July but six months later, and we will see Indian

organizations getting more responsive to its customers, opined the newspaper.

The point that I am trying to make here is that the international media is

now recognizing that India is a country that can deliver, and lots of MNCs are

now outsourcing out of India. Just a year back, an Indian traveling abroad would

wait for weeks before he could spot a few lines of some news about India. The

movement is picking up, and is going to only grow. The evangelizers in the

Indian IT industry have a big friend and supporter in the international media

now. It's up to them, how they can make the best use of this friendship.

IBRAHIM AHMAD

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