Indian IT servicing depot – Reality Check

June 15, 2007

By Sri...

[Guest post by Sridhar G, CEO/Founder of Yulop, the company behind YBangalore.com. Sridhar has worked with companies like EDS, but ended up starting on his own. Sridhar & I share a common vision of 'productizing India', and hence this post!-Ashish]

It takes no less than 3 months of training and an age old conceptual servicing myths for next 6 months[at offshore], to reach an onsite depot filled with cynical and incumbency factors associated with a client running the entire show!

Isn’t this the fate of all bright engineers aspiring to be outsourced?

What would India gain out of outsourced knowledge? Do we create engineers to be exported? or we lack job profiles for IIT/IIM grads to fit in and stay back in India?
We have 1200++ companies registered under STPI [Software Technology Parks of INDIA], out of which less than 10% can be tagged as ‘Product companies’ [sorry we lack product engineers].

How long can the Servicing Industry survive ? Wouldn’t the less privileged countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines be adverted to the servicing factors ?
Wait for Dollar to fall, increase in attrition rates, demand for high level salary perks would all lead to a much worsened situation.

When would India have its own Google or Yahoo ? When would a service company start building entrepreneurial qualities, I am afraid they don’t look into future and are pretty satisfied in billing a resource to its client.

A CMM 5 Level company does generates thousands of jobs, but it leaves out discrepancies amongst the lower level, It made a common man rich, but it left a huge void with a lower class segments.

Best way to start a new servicing venture:

Group of highly qualified servicing engineers,
Prepare a spec to attract the crowd [clients],
Push in for a ISO and further to CMM level certification [you know its easy to get it done in India],
Get few freshers and hit the circuit,
Hunt for few more varied clients [you know its a easy plot],
Get your IPO out, apply for a ADR on to the anvil of NASDAQ
and yes you would make a lot and you would be out into a 2nd tier company listing and you would be on a acquisition Mode…...It’s easy guys CHILLAX. ..

Though it does take a lot of gut feeling to be associated with the new revolution of product development.

After all, revolution is not a dinner party, nor being onsite delivery head, nor being a doc manager, nor being an ITPL associate.
It cannot be advanced softly, dramatically,carefully,respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly.

Tags: Indian IT industry

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mohit

Hi bloggers,
That's a polished way to say , read thru all the comments. I believe more than analysis its requires certain reality checks. Products require innovation .. innovation requires patience.... services are relatively quick ... clear carved way... soo why take pain.
India has always had more number of people(able and honest)to guide than the number who thought require guidance... one more reason why people cant be synchronized for a long period of time(exceptions are every where), which primes product companies.
well , a innovative style of work culture is what is needed i suppose..which has employee motive also..time not to get amazed, cause a lot evolution is on its way.

cheers on any further thoughts !

shady

Gova your scaring the service industry a bit too early :)... its always good to pull one out of the bag ourselves. Majority of them work for others,they land up abroad to provide service and which those people are good at extracting. Why don't we develop our own product and make something happen.

Gova

I fully agree with you sri,

Certainly with time, Indian IT servicing industry will face trouble,
If we don't think of building our own product, our dependence on other nations for job opportunities will never come down.
Every 9/11 type of attacks on other nation is going to affect India.
IIT/IIM is producing manager....
Need of Time is
Creators not Managers...
Innovators not just Investors…

What we need is Revolution not Evolution.....
What we need is PASSION, INOVATION & EXCITEMENT…….

“You don't have to be Great to start but you have to Start to be great”

Bharadawaj

All Said and done..
Being an entrepreneur, having passionate people on board, experimenting and being Brave are all good.

The most important is Innovative thinking and giving out the best to the world. That is where all things fall in place.

Arvind

Quality of service is a Huge Task an field,plays a Mjor Role in An Sucess story & ensuring this quality is maintained over a Period ... leads to sucess story

Not many entrepreneurs give there freedom to their employees to experiment and do something independently,which is real Bad Aspect & is the MAIN root cause,wats sucess without Experimenting & failing ?

Requirments:

* First thing is Passion,which most people lack
* next as aashish solanki said COURAGE & CONVICTION
*willing to experiment & accepting failures as stepping stones in these Experiments
* Last but least .. like minded people who would all there's for a sucess story ....

Loki

yeah !! the points accepted.....
more points in the next comments....

Sri...

Alok

When things aren't passionate to be on a working mode, its always to be quoted being a Servicing industry.

But yet associating yourself with product company is giving a right meaning to democracy, join a company which you would be proud to be associated with and merge your dreams to take it forward.

No one on the product level cribs to have people around, rather they should be fortunate to find passionate folks around and to carry there dreams to a new level.

Alok

Infact, entrepreneurs in India also crib about talented people not joining them.
Tell me - if you are paying me less, you are giving me some small nos. of shares - why the hell do you want me to be a part of your show?
Just because you are passionate (and will reap the benefits of starting up) doesn't mean that your employee shd also be passionate about the entire idea.

What's the incentive, gentlemen?

Ashish

Kapil..
Great point.
I guess it's a vicious circle.
Many guys startup, because they don't wanna work for somebody else.
But they do want people to work for them.

Kapil Ohri

I have a question- How many entrepreneurs give the freedom to their employees to experiment and do something independently? They try to utlise the skill set of their employees as per their own requirement, thats right from the organisation's perspective, but not from the entrepreneurship prespective.

abhishek

India’s strengths in the software market lie in its pursuit of new opportunities.

Outsourcing software requirements depends mostly on quality of services, and quality has continued to remain a prime edge for Indian software companies.

India’s software and services industry has and will continue to remain in the driver’s seat of the country’s IT sector.

India’s success in the software arena is attributed to the software industry’s knowledge and expertise in cutting edge technologies and skilled manpower base.
Both these strengths are likely to contribute towards the industry’s future growth. In fact, India’s prowess in emerging technologies is also helping the software and services industry obtain new customers, even in the face of a debilitating U.S. economy slowdown.
There is only one way that the Indian software industry is headed and that is up. The coming years will only reiterate this trend.

Aashish Solanki

Well said, it requires some COURAGE & CONVICTION to build products. Servicing is challenging but product development lets you 'TACKLE PROBLEMS' and solve them!

And trust me the fun lies there. Hope we see new beginning with Masp-ups and Web 2.0 start-ups!