IT sector in India has been working on the Chinese management belief of low cost, reasonable/low quality and minimal innovation - that is why I brand myself as a "cheap outsourcer". I am an employee of one of the biggest IT company in India and in the years of employment, have developed my perspectives on India's IT revolution.
IT companies in India hire engineers like cats and dogs, not depending on their educational background but on the basis of whether they can write a few lines of code in C/C++. After all, they can't afford brilliant engineers because they won't do the cheap work for crap salaries. Heck of it is that they make Mechanical/Civil Engineers work on developing "end to end solutions" for banking, finance, inventory management, website development, etc. Fyi by developing I mean coding, not designing. Individual interests are a part of past if you are working in one of these companies, for them generation of revenue is more important that individual interests.And then the HR's wonder why is the attrition rate so high!!!
Most of my friends ask me what is the nature of the work? Most projects in indian IT companies are maintenence - i.e someone else has already developed an application. All you need to do is to add more features/change behaviour as per client's request . Then there's production support, which is worse. It is almost call-center work - ensure that the application runs normally and if it fails, get it up and running ASAP. In a sense, like a car mechanic - I didnt get an engineering degree to be a car mechanic - I got it to design the car! Finally, if you are lucky you get development or analysis (in my case, I got it and it was the best analysis project for a long time, which senior FE Analysts from across tell me). But then, analysis is easy, designing the system is what is important. Typically, customers get the design done by the powerhouses likes of Abaqus, Altair, Accenture etc. The designs are then sent to "desi companies", who actually do the meshing and view the plots defined by them for cheap. Thus, all we do is donkey work. It is not technology - it is programming.
Technology is a way of creating a new idea, paradigm or design - programming is implementing that design. Thus, most of the people in IT waste their engineering degrees, doing mundane programming, waiting for an onsite requirement with a hope of becoming project managers - after which they spend their lives approving timesheets, conducting appraisals and sucking up to the client . Shouldnt an experienced IT professional be doing advanced stuff and leave the bullshitting to MBA's? Are'nt there enough of management schools in India which produce tons of MBA's every year?
Every now and then a question props into my mind, why is it so hard for desi companies to do design? Indians are doing hardcore design in many of the top consulting companies, but when it comes to desi inc.they've not tried hard enough to get into this space. Or worse they dont have the competence to get the job done.Desi companies dont have the brand equity like KPMG/McKensey to attract IT consulting projects , which is largely a reputation driven business. In order to build an image, desi companies need to hire high-flying consulants who dont come cheap and dont work for cheap projects. Even after all this, there is no guarantee of results?
How many software products come out of Indian companies? IFlex is one, but its the only company to have a product successful worldwide. Making products is expensive has no guarantee of success. Companies think of why risking it when services will give them an assured income?
What is the need to get products or strive for high-end consulting when companies are breaking billion dollar barriers and climbing in the global ratings? I remember the lines from a song"November Rain" by GnR "nothin' lasts forever, And we both know hearts can change". Simply because today India has an advantage of using the algorithm of low cost, low margin services will run it's course in the future. In due course the payscales are rising in india and rupee is appreciating wrt the dollar, margins are becoming more and more slim. In time, India may not be as competitive Brasil or Russia - the American cos will take their projects out there! Who knows companies out there may provide more value added work with added security (India has been guilty of which). Similar history can be seen in the manufacturing sector - earlier Taiwan then SouthKorea and now, China. For too long have we been stuck in the field of cheap outsourcing now time has come to invest in consulting and products, and take Indian IT to the next level, or else I fear we will remain stuck in this low end nonsense.
Indian companies have 2 choices - Identify and set shop in countries (Brazil/Uruguay/Hungary) where the low cost, low margin algorithm can be applied or enter into high end IT, which is independent of geography. I believe later as high margin fetching business. What could be even better, is coming up with products - like Java, operating systems (Like Sun, Oracle or Microsoft) or probably a new technology (like SAP). That is real tech. it's not that we can't do it, it's just that we dont want to risk it.
It reminds me of a quote by Sir Benjamin Franklin:
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success has no meaning."
No comments:
Post a Comment