Gazing into the crystal ball of technology

On the second day of the just concluded Nasscom Leadership Forum 2011, moderating a minor session on cloud computing, the Mind Tree CEO, Krishna Kumar, made an impromptu but telling statement. He blurted out saying why no one was asking if the well-known Indian IT brands would still be around five or ten years from now.

He was pointing at the disruptive potential of the Cloud, which is expected to pose a serious challenge to outsourcing business.

A vice-president of a Bangalore-based networking firm said Kumar might have asked the question to event organisers as well.  “The Leadership Forum 2011, which had ‘Drivers of the Decade’, as its theme ironically treated Cloud as a side show and had just two sessions on the subject,” he added. Two other delegates also told Deccan Herald that the Forum could have focused better on a few pressing subjects. The CEO of a Gurgaon-based captive complained that while the BPO industry was rebooting, there was hardly anything on that.

Nasscom vice-president Sangeeta Gupta said the event was not specific to IT, BPO or engineering industries. “The Forum addresses broad issues affecting the industry and Nasscom has separate events for cloud and micro issues. Focusing on a micro issue such as BPO would have excluded many delegates,” she said.

Two delegates complained that even when sessions were held on the topics of interest, speakers failed to break any new ground. In the session on Indian market, a CEO of a BPO firm spoke about half-baked talent, security and transport-related irritants, issues which have been in the limelight for the last five years, said a sales professional from Pune.

Gupta said of the 40+ sessions, a few may not have lived up to the expectations. But she would disagree that most went that way, she said. More delegates sat inside the halls than spending time at the corridor, indicating at the quality of discussions, she noted.  Many agreed. A young product architect at a Bangalore startup said, he found the three-days at the Forum enriching.   

Premium property

Despite triggering differing opinions, Leadership Forum 2011, Nasscom’s  flagship event, dazzled. One thousand and six hundred delegates paid Rs 25,000-40,000 each to attend it, making it India’s one of the most expensive conferences. The turnout was huge and Nasscom had placed security guards in black dress to ensure only delegates with badges were let in.

The event held in one of the best Mumbai hotels was opulent. Nasscom spared no effort to pamper delegates. The lunch was lavish, cocktails generous, and there were even mosquito repellents for delegates attending the outdoor cultural show. Most importantly, it lined up an impressive list of speakers, featuring the who-is-who of Indian IT industry. This correspondent sat through all the three days of the Forum to list top three takeaways of the event.

The first takeaway revolved around a theme that ironically is a bit remote to the industry, but still resonated across the three days: social inclusivity. Introducing the social innovation awardees of 2011, Nasscom Foundation chairman Jerry Rao said the IT body had been engaging with social work with increasing seriousness, a point that was underlined by multiple sessions on the subject.

Kapil Sibal, who made the inaugural speech, urged the IT industry to go beyond targeting numbers and use its technology and skills for public good. IT has been instrumental in enhancing productivity in the private sector; can it repeat the act in the public sector as well? There were indications that the industry would play its public role but with two conditions. First, it would not be a non-profit exercise and, fortunately, there are opportunities to develop a viable business while helping the country develop.

The second condition would see the industry adhering to its idea of meritocracy, a notion that dissents with the advocates of reservation in the private sector. Prof Raghuram G Rajan, a former IMF economist, said the government should build capability of the weaker sections to earn more and not handout assistance as entitlement. While he was siding with the PMO against the National Advisory Council on food security, he was probably capturing the mood of the industry as well.

Giving back to the society

The event featured two reticent IT billionaires sharing their work on social inclusivity. HCL chairman Shiv Nadar showcased the first of the three Vidya Gyaan schools he is building in Uttar Pradesh.  These residential institutions would provide truly international quality education to carefully selected thousands of bright children from the villages free of cost. Nadar, who has committed Rs 1,200 crores to the project, hopes to nurture a generation of leaders in bureaucracy, politics and industry, who can trace their roots to remote villages.

There are 5,000 odd IAS officers in the country, through whom all public funds are spent. If some of these children can reach those positions, there could be change, Nadar said. He contrasted his approach, which is unabashedly elitist, with the approach of another IT leader, Azim Premji. The Wipro chief has committed $2 billion worth of stock to improve the government schools in the country. Nadar acknowledged that his approach would benefit only a small number of children and hoped that others in the industry would do their bit.

As the industry matures and more billionaires happen, more could follow his footsteps. Most IT professionals are self-made, come from small town, middle class families. It would be interesting to see how they will respond to the impoverished majority of the country.
Addressing delegates, Premji said passing on wealth to children was socially intolerable in a country marked by growing inequality and urged the gathering to do more for the society. A call that may sound strange in many places, may find many takers in this industry.

 TCS chairman N Chandrasekaran offered the second memorable moment of the conference. His session started on a dull note until a well-known journalist pointed out that the TCS boss was just speaking in cliches. Chandra agreed that small companies were more innovative as large companies were more focused on managing a running business. They would need to make an extra-conscious effort through either spin-offs or partnerships to innovate, he said. Many experts have said that large Indian firms have become too big to innovate. But Chandra pointed out that large Indian firms could not have built large businesses by just taking orders and had indeed graduated to offer higher value services. The challenge for TCS, with 1,90,000 employees, was to react faster and remain agile during periods of both contraction and expansion, he said. Social media was a game changer, though he was yet to grasp fully what impact it would have on various businesses including IT, he noted.

Former CEO of Pepsi and Apple, who had famously fired Steve Jobs, offered the third memorable presentation. Indian companies were strong on left brain functions such as engineering but lagged in right brain qualities, which were required to offer magical experience to customers, he said. Indians, like Germans, and unlike Americans, were not culturally prepared to fail as the personal and company liabilities combined in this country, he noted. Commenting on the rising protectionism in the US, he said, Indian firms had not done a good job marketing themselves in the US and hence got picked on by the US politicians. “More jobs have been lost to automation than to outsourcing,” he said.

Gazing into the crystal ball he said, outsourcing would continue to grow riding on new networking technologies and connected devices that were accelerating wireless collaboration. He said XAAS or Expertise as Service, the next big thing in outsourcing, would be marked by cloud-based services and mobile collaboration. As outsourcing moves from back office to front office, the number of middle managers would reduce in the US, he said. Interesting words that promise more opportunity and trouble for Indian firms...