Future IITians and IIMians would not be stars ****.

Entrance exams to IIT and IIM are considered to be the ultimate frontiers to cross for a student in India. Once a student crack either of these exams he or she is considered to be having a high-paying, smooth and successful career for rest of his/her life. These institutions have been there for long now. And we have seen the products (pass-outs) of these institutions achieving great success in their chosen fields later in careers. And since the earlier alumnis of these institutes have achieved huge successs in businesses and other areaes, we are attaching more and more importance now to those who get into them. As a result students who crack these exams become overnight celebrities because they are considered to be sure to be successful.

But I have a kind of fear and doubt that not all of this new breed of celebrities would be successful in their careers. Because there is difference beween the kind of students who were getting into these institutions earlier and students getting in in last few years. Now a days there are coaching institutes who train students. Coaching class teachers and students put all their efforts and energy for cracking these exams.

So it's not that only talanted students are getting into these institutes but average students are also getting in. The average stuents put extraordinary effort and get through these exams. But such average students can not perform at the same high level all through their lives. So obviously such students would always be average later in their careers (Though this is not true for every average student).

Earlier only the real talented students would get through in these institutes as there was not much rote preparation so the quality of student would be maintained. So we see the alumnis of these institutes achieving extraordinary successes in their careeres. But now when average students are getting in, there would definittely not be superachievers. But this would only be realised very late.

Resurgent India: Our time is coming!

Two news stories of last couple of days have made me proud. For anyone outside India (especially westerners) these news stories would have been nothing short of shocking or even disgusting but for me they were pleasant pieces of news. You would wonder if Iam insane or even call me a sadist if I say I was pleased to know that a union minister sought to influence the justice or an MP slapped a bank employee on duty.

No, you are seeing glass as half empty, whereas I am looking at the glass half full. I am happy that the High Court judge made the incidence of calling by union minister public instead of following minister's advice( or threat) and happy because the bank employee filed a police complaint against the errant MP instead of toying with him. These sides of stories make me happy or joyous.

I am not surprised by the actions of minister and MP because we in India take these things as usual and they happen regularly so nothing to be shocked about. But the reactions of the two public employees are exemplary and I salute them for having taken their respective stands. They deserve all the praise and adulation from public in India. I am sure these two reactions would set the precedence now and more of such misuses of privileges by politicians would become public. These are course-changer events in Indian public life. They are true leaders.

These positive developments make me proud of my country and fellow citizens. Long Live Great India.

Leadership lesson: Doing what is correct and just without thinking of the consequences is what we called a true leadership.

Product Design: You can not escape, my love.

Automobile in India is now moving (or has already moved if I am late) from one being part of basic needs onto a luxury for the middle class. And when anything becomes a luxury, it doesn't just have to fulfil the basic requirements of that product (like for an automobile, to ferry people around) but have to satisfy the ego or even shoot up the status (in his or her own mind) of the owner. So for an automobile product to be bought it has to satisfy many criteria. And the top most of them would be the looks or the design of the product.

If we observe the automobile products launched in India over last decade, by having only a (and first) look at the product you can easily tell whether the product is going to be successful or not. Or you can even write obituary of the product at first look if looks are not very striking. In my mind I wrote the same for three Suzuki two wheeler products and two Honda products (Unicorn and Shine). In retrospect, I think I am fairly correct (no braggin or boasting) on those counts as these launches have not been so successful for their respective companies.

Today when a consumer in India (Indian consumer is mostly going to be a young person) buys a product he (mostly the automobile buyer is "definitely male") sees the look of the product as the most important thing. Yamaha has not been able to make any presence in Indian two wheeler market simply because none (except the latest launch FZ. Oooh! that's the best bike in India so far by looks) of their product have been worth looking at. The same could be the case of Suzuki two wheeler as well, since all three products launched so far are not at all good at design. Yamaha and Suzuki are well known world over for their superb two-wheeler technology still they are failing in Indian market. I am sure the only reason is that they do not have great product designers in their studios. Superb technology only gets appreciation when it's presented in best designed box. Even Honda is not able to make much of an impact in two wheeler because of the same reason. Bajaj would not be successful or worthy competition to Hero Honda until they hire some top-notch designers. Right now their products looks like underfed dogs or foxes. Pulsar had been successful mainly, because the category which it sells in, did not have worthy competition so far. By the way now Pulsar design has improved considerably but still not the best and has a long way to go. In this category the two new entrants TVS Apache and Yamaha FZ are going to be the scorching hot products, if they have good enough technology.

Obviously when a product's design is great second most important thing should be the underlying technology. Hero Honda has got these two things right in the same order in most of their products and we can see the results.

Same could be said of the passenger car market as well. Unknown (at start) Hyundai is successful in Indian market whereas the mighty GM and Ford are still struggling here for precisely the same reason.

I always wonder why can the management of Yamaha, Suzuki, Bajaj etc not see this point? A business magazine "Businessworld" (oooh, my favourite) carried a cover story on product design couple of years back but probably CEOs of these above companies did not read that issue and paying price now. Had they paid Rs 5 for that issue they would have made a few thousand crores for their companies and we Indian consumers would have had even superior product marquees to choose from.

Monetise Taj

Taj Mahal is a historical place and Indian govt. has control over it. Why not govt. use it to monetise it's appeal. There are lot of companies who use Taj's image in their marketing, like Berger paints, Taj tea, etc. Why not govt take some kind of royalty from these companies?

Long Leave Indian democracy

The election results yesterday was simply stunning by any measure. None, absolutely none, in his/her wildest dream would have thought that the Congress would be getting absolute majority (almost!) at the centre. But that happened, and in style. I, though, did not favour another term for Congress govt. at centre, however I am really happy for the way Indian voters have given so clear a mandate for politics which is not divisive, not communal, pro-people, and inclusive, at least on paper. Voters have chosen the best option available to them.

I have never felt so confident about India and it's future as I do now. I now feel confident that if there is problem and none is able to decide which party, which person or which ideology should lead India, I think we should leave that to Indian voters and they will decide it best. Today I really feel proud of Indian democracy, they way it has matured and the way it will protect my future and that of my son. We can proudly tell to the world that we can teach you a lesson or two about democracy.

Long Leave Indian democracy.

Credit Crunch to hit Indian IT? No

Most of the Indian IT companies work in supporting legacy application, application development & management, BI & data warehousing and BPO services. These are the areas, which are very essential to support the day to day running of businesses. These functions are crucial to running the businesses. So these are the areas where businesses can not afford to cut back. Because even if these are bad times they can not abandon their existing systems or cut back to support services to their employees or customers. They need continued support to run them.
Also businesses need to keep enhancing their IT systems and processes that are required by regularatory requirements like BASEL II, SOX, etc. Such requirements can not be postponed by businesses just because there is recession.
So I strongly believe that Indian IT outsourcers would keep on getting their business from international clients.
In fact during recession, businesses would be looking at cutting cost down so they would be evaluating more areas of their IT spending which could be outsourced/offshored. So it may even open up new business opportunities and increase the business for outsourcers.
It’s the high-end consulting business which may be affected in big way as businesses may not want those services and Indian IT companies have hardly any significance presence in that area.

Emerging IT hotspots in world and competition to Indian IT

A lot is being made out of Chinese threat to Indian IT industry and also threat from other emerging cheap IT labour markets like Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic), Latin America (Brazil, Argentina), China, East Asian Countries (Malaysia, Philippines), Russia, etc. But I don’t think any threat from any of these countries at least in next 10 years.
The reason why I think so is because the Outsourcing industry in the world is flourishing because of following three reasons:

• Cheap IT/ Engineering labour,
• English speaking skills and
• Easy and quick Scalability.

All of these three skills or differentiators are equally important for a country to be a real outsourcer and a real threat to India. Because if you have engineers and they are not cheap no point (case is Russia), or you have cheap engineers and also in abundance but no English (China) no point and you have English speaking engineers but not in abundance (Latin America, East Europe and East Asia) then again no point. And all these three above criteria are satisfied by India only.
A lot is being made of China that China will be able to teach English skills to all its engineers in no time and it'll be a threat. But teaching English is no child's play, it take years to be comfortable wit it. The biggest Chinese IT outsourcing company's turnover is not more than $300m in 2006 and that is no match for TCS and Infosys of India. Also most of Chinese companies’ work is domestic.
Another thing IT project management skills (5+ year experience) are costly in China than in India. So the so-called cost advantage of China over India is just a mirage not reality. Also China mainly caters to Japanese market because Dalian area in China provides Japanese speaking resources. There is hardly any work being done for non-Asian market in China. Similarly other countries like Russia, Brazil, Philippines, etc. can not provide scalability which is required in any service industry. Outsourcing jobs requires huge numbers of engineers which are not available in these countries.But all these countries can be very good partners for Indian companies. Indians can utilise these countries by setting their operations in these countries and can tap their local market. So I feel there are more opportunities for Indian IT companies in these countries then threats. Like Indian can open centre in Russia for high end IT work and product development work because of the excellent talent there. Latin America and Eastern Europe could be used to cater for non-English clients. China and Eastern Asia can be used for servicing local and Japanese market. So emergence of these new hotspots should excite India rather intimidate.

China a Threat to India in IT? Not at least for now!

In last 4-5 years if anyone has said that China could be a major competitor to India in IT outsourcing & BPO business, it would have definitely sent shocking waves among big IT players and even among IT professionals (they stand to loose jobs).
Media, especially the research firms like IDC, Gartner & Forrester had been proclaiming from perch top that China was going to be a big powerhouse very soon in IT outsourcing and India should worry about dragon. They were predicting for this to come true as early as by 2007. Everyone was saying so looking at the way China had been making strides in manufacturing and the way it was improving its hard infrastructure. And for us as well there was no way but to believe because if Chinese think of doing something they would make that happen at any cost. That’s the kind of reputation they have got.
But nothing significant in IT outsourcing industry has happened so far in China and I don’t see this happening for at least another 7-8 years. That’s when it may be starting to emerge a contender for competitor, still it would not be a competitor. That would still take few more years from there if Chinese are prepared.
Today there is not a single IT vendor in China worth its salt. There are many outsourcers like Objectiva, Bleum, etc. but they are just fringe players who would either never become serious players or would have to try too hard to become one.
Here are some of the reasons why China can not just become a serious IT player in IT outsourcing business:

1. There are no big IT companies comparable in scale to Indian giants like TCS, Infosys. Today to bag a big outsourcing contract you have to show scale. Otherwise you can just become a body-shopper.
2. Project management experience is one thing which you can not learn in an institute or college that comes only from work experience and India has that in abundance. Indians have been working in IT industry for decades now and so they have built formidable skills in this area which is their selling point and also huge differentiator.
3. Even though the IT industry is so small there in China still attrition in China is more than 20% as against 15% in India. Not so goon signs at the inception.
4. The experienced IT resources in China are 50-70% costlier than in India. Even the entry level resources are not very cheap in India and those are also not English speaking so the cost factor is hardly an advantage.
5. Patent and IP protection is biggest problem in China and IT being such an important and sensitive area for customers they would think twice (or more?) before sending work to China.
6. Should we mention English as one of the reasons? Can Chinese learn English in few years to become strong contender? Most of the business world over happens in English, even in non-English speaking countries.
7. Nothing works in China without guang-xi i.e. connections, so for an outsider if they have to set up shop they either have to tie-up with local partner just for guang-xi or wait for years to grow whereas in IT you have to be very fast and nimble. International players like IBM, EDS, and TCS may not find it easy to grow there as they have grown in India.
8. IBM, Accenture and EDS have been in China for 15-20 years still their service staff is minuscule that tells what the current IT environment there is.
9. Indian IT is not because of government support or any institutional support but because of entrepreneurship of some individuals. In China it’s government that is pushing, but govt. can set up manufacturing companies not IT. It’s a people business. Better the people, more is success.
10. China’s one child policy hampers employee movement between different Chinese cities as people normally are hesitant to leave their parents and grant parents.
    
    This is not to say that China can never become a serious IT player and Indian IT should also not become complacent. I’d hope China to come up fast in IT so India also improve its quality and there is overall improvement.

How a leader change the course of an organisation.

The role of an able leader in the development of any organisation is as important as the oxizen to our body. It's just one leader who can make or mar an organisation. There are plenty of examples scattered around us to support this.
When India was born and Nehru became the first prime minister, his aim was to make India a country worthy for her people. He along with others created a democratic and secular government, created public institutions with broader purpose of serving the people of nation, gave people of the country equal opportunity, created equality among people of various religions and social strata among other things. He set out in creating a modern India by building dams, core-industries, higher education institute, etc. which were clearly meant to take India into league of leading nations of the world. Nehru had long term vision with which he acted for india. That is where the foundation for today's vibrant India was laid. Had he went the otherway of fulfilling his own short term gains, India would not be in position where it's now. Here the leadership of a single person Nehru was very important for india to follow either the path of peace and prosperity or the path of chaos like many other countries.
Similarly Tata group was just languishing and stumbling along in early nineties when Ratan Tata took over it. At that time hardly anyone would have thought that Tata group would be so globalised that it'll take over companies around the world. But it was sheer leadership and the vision of Ratan Tata that Tata group is where it is today. It's one of the most globally diversified and most ambitious diversified group from India. This success is again simply due to the vision of a single leader Ratan Tata.
Obviously, in all this we can not deny the fact that every leader needs to have an able and supporting team which can turn the vision of a leader into reallity. But here again it's the leader who selects his team.