The annual function of the Confederation of Indian Industry in Pune, titled
‘Making Made in India matter,’ provided a great insight into the current
state of the Indian industry. It also had some important lessons for the Indian
IT sector. In his inimitable style, industry doyen Rahul Bajaj spoke about the
need to make Indian companies globally competitive and said that the great CEOs
of the present troubled times will be those who will rise beyond charisma and
public relations to real performance and shareholder value creation. This is
very true for the IT industry too. The few who have survived the slowdown
holocaust have been oriented towards performance. They will continue to focus in
the same manner in order to succeed in the new financial year and beyond.
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The good news about the year long slowdown that has affected the software
sector is that it dragged many software players, kicking and screaming up the
value chain, a climb that had proved to be elusive during the good years. Today,
our own company prides itself on the work done in knowledge management in
Europe, e-business strategy in Hong Kong, e-learning architecture in the United
States and private banking reengineering in Asia, whereas a year ago we would
have been talking technology like everybody else. It is this realization that
business process transformation and solutions that use IT to address customer
pain points are the real ‘sweet spots’ for the IT industry that has driven
many of us to discover new areas of growth.
Areas that are not only more profitable but also do more credit to the entire
industry, which was in danger of just becoming the low cost back yard of
American and European corporations.
And therein lies a message for every company that is seeking to emulate a TCS
or Infosys or even an IBM Global Services. Just stop trying to emulate and
discover new ways of understanding and servicing customer needs! Because it is
better to be asked, "Who is your competitor?" than "How are you
different from IBM or TCS?" Another fact that is staring all of us in the
face is the opportunity for Indian infotech and manufacturing firms to
collaborate to develop new value added solutions and use them initially to
improve the competitiveness of the Indian manufacturing sector and eventually as
rugged solutions that could work in any developing country. Why is it that CIOs
from the Indian manufacturing sector insist on getting their companies to pay
for expensive international software which does not get fully implemented and
results in the constant CEO refrain about ‘Money down the drain in information
technology?’ There are many homegrown solutions like the PC-SOFT ERP, the
Synise supply chain suite, Talisma CRM and other excellent products, which have
been developed specifically by, for and with the Indian industry.
Let this not be interpreted as a call for shrink-wrapped software a la Word
and Explorer to be developed by Indian software companies. Our own experience
has shown that India can excel at developing templates that serve 60% of the
generic needs of any banking, manufacturing or retail client, which can then be
customized and implemented at the client’s premises through our proven
services teams. This process of developing solution blueprints and reusable
component libraries can be extended across a range of business applications and
areas like knowledge management and Web services.
At the same CII conference, eminent economist and journalist Ashok Desai
talked about the many lessons that ‘old economy’ firms could learn from the
IT sector — the ability to manage people, the willingness to be globally
competitive without any need for protection and the capability to adapt to
changing environments. While all this is true, there is a lot that many of us in
IT continue to learn from veteran industrialists and businessmen, in India and
abroad who have build industries and businesses over the last few decades. It is
time for the ‘New Economy’ and ‘Old Economy’ divide to be bridged once
and for all and every sector to collaborate to build Indian competitiveness and
success in global markets.
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