We are ready to work for the hardware industry: Jerry Rao

Widely recognized in the areas of IT software and services and the ITeS-BPO

space, Jaithirth (known to all as Jerry) Rao took over the chairmanship of the

Nasscom recently. Winner of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award

in 2001, Rao, who is also the chairman of Mphasis BFL,has been actively involved

in the activities of Nasscom. In an exclusive interview with Rahul Gupta of

CyberMedia News, Rao shared his views on what needs to be done to lead India to

the high quality, secure, reliable software powerhouse and center of best

practices in the BPO. Excerpts:

What would be your priorities and focus areas as the chairman of Nasscom?



The basic thing about Nasscom is its brand image and the great legacy. It

instills a confidence within the industry that we are there to help create an

eco-system that will change the face of IT and BPO sector in India. My job will

be to build on that heritage and foundation. While the world at large recognizes

that Indian IT and BPO companies are truly world class–both in terms of cost

and quality–I think we need to work towards creating reliability and security.

Our global customers as well as most of the Indian companies are very much

concerned about that, but we have to convince the world. We have to make sure

that this should be complemented by good cost possession and high quality and

that should be the image. So I think the focus should be more on reliability and

security.

Nasscom has been trying to underplay the whole backlash

problem. How do you justify this?



I don’t think we have been trying to underplay. The fact of the matter is

that outsourcing is good for American economy; it makes them more competitive

and it’s good for US companies. It is an internal issue and really not

something where we can influence anything. Also, being the election year, such

political issues are bound to crop up, as it would in any other democracy, and

one has to deal with it. In this case, the onus is not on us but on them to deal

with it. As far as Nasscom is concerned, I think we have been successful in

getting the message across. By and large, today most influential think tanks

agree that outsourcing is win-win situation for both America and India.

Certainly, individuals have been affected during the economic downturn phase.

However, recent statistics show that only last month US added more than three

lakh jobs. What job loss are they talking about if in one month they are adding

up one third of the total no of BPO jobs in India? I think with the US economy

showing signs of robust growth, it’s just a matter of another two months and

there won’t be any such outcry. That’s what we need. This is an internal

American issue that will get sorted out because Americans are responsible people

and realize the importance of outsourcing. Nasscom’s job is to basically

provide information on how Indian IT has been able to help companies around the

world in becoming competitive. I think outsourcing is a legitimate debate within

American society.

How do you plan to change the perception that Nasscom has

not been actively pushing its agenda to sell India Inc?



I think Nasscom has been very particular about India Inc brand. Twenty years

ago, India did not have the great reputation for intellectual property

protection and was associated with piracy. Today, the perception has completely

changed and while China is still not considered to be a ‘great place for

intellectual property’, India is looked at differently. I think India owes

this to Nasscom, which initiated vigorous anti-piracy moves, publicized it to

make sure that intellectual property got the respect it deserves. All this has

contributed to India Inc’s image. Nasscom was and is still very much committed

to making sure that India Inc has a great image in the world.

There seems to be some lack in aggression. While Nasscom was

earlier seen to be a thought leader initiating activities in newer areas even

before anyone started thinking about it, it seems the organization has lost

these initiatives and ‘path pradarshak’ role somewhere in its journey.

Nasscom’s job is to create an ecosystem, which is industry

friendly, which permits for growth, quality and we are very much doing that.

There are some ongoing initiatives that we have taken in past. One of them is as

a product forum that encourages companies, which are into product development

and Indian intellectual property creation space. Many of these are small

companies that are coming together under this forum to exchange best practices,

to work together, to create a system where there is mutual reinforcement in each

other’s courts and that’s been quite successful so far. We have created an

SME forum and have got about 800 members in that. These SME’s today agree on

that fact that there has been significant improvement in their communication

network.

Also Nasscom is very much in the security, data privacy

issues that are very much part of thought leadership. We are organizing

conferences jointly with various IT associations of US focused on security and

cyber terrorism to establish best practices, to do cutting edge work and to do

absolute thought leadership.

Don’t you think time is ripe for Nasscom to leverage

this brand and work for the overall growth of Indian IT including even the

hardware sector?



Certainly we need to do this. I think these issues are all inter-related.

What is the ultimate tribute to free trade? Software industry has zero percent

duty and that is largely because of Nasscom and that has resulted into the high

growth in this sector. I think if we have zero duty, we have high growth. I

think through free trade, we can have high growth. We should move to an

environment, wherein we have hardware also to have zero duty and I am glad that

government is committed to do it in phased manner, but sooner we move, it is

better. We are ready to provide any kind of support required, and ready to work

for hardware industry also because I think it will eventually help the whole

industry.

Commitment to free trade creates world-class companies,

world-class infrastructure and world-class deliveries and it’s important as

you are now competing with the best in the world. Yes, I think the focus of

Nasscom should be IT in its broader sense- IT enabled services-both domestic and

export and in export too, both big and small companies, both service providers

and product providers. We should have the large clients. We cannot make this

rigid classification anymore. I think IT industry in its totality should move

and grow.

CyberMedia News