‘High time we looked beyond IT’
Source: Business Standard
DATE: August 21st, 2008
Mohit Soapbox:
‘Looking beyond IT’. If I was to rephrase it I would say how does India leverage its IT/ITES industry to move beyond IT. For the past 15 years or so India has become the leader in offering a ‘low cost’ alternative to IT/Process work. The drive to be the leader has been primarily driven by headcount growth and paralleled with revenue growth creating job opportunities for many. The IT vendors in India have managed to create a global footprint of clients and corpoations have created operating centers in India. It started out with low cost , similar talent resources and required companies to train people, establish processes and create operational excellence. Companies have strived hard to be the leader but has there been too much focus on creating ‘ another brick in the wall ‘ to conform to what the client wants rather than create innovation ?
The question now is that during this growth process did the IT industry create an ecosystem to take the next step of moving beyond IT ? Has the industry a leader in IT delivery and operational excellence, left out the framework to develop a healthy eco system for smaller firms, individuals to become entrepreneur ? Should it be the responsibility of the industry alone to create the eco system for innovation and next steps ? and is there an appetite for risk - a healthy respect for failure and ability to start again or have we creating operating engines which tend to feed on repeatability of tasks rather than reward innovation ?
As part of our mentoring program a number of startups we deal with which are looking to establish a presence in the US, or looking for capital we hear a story that the eco system for fostering innovation is still in a very nascent stage. The sense of optimism is very much there within these entrepreneurs and a feeling the growth story in India is for real and will offer them the awards is there. The markets these entrepreneurs look for a credibility boost is still the west. Domestic markets still prefer conformist trends for the industry.
It is encouraging to see corporates, academia promoting innovation and willing to bear the risk/reward equation for innovation but it is going to take time for this to be a sustainable initiative requiring all concerned to participate.
It is good to see leaders within the industry speaking about the need for the ecosystem and hopefully will help build the eco system.
Would love to hear views from people on how do you build an entrepreneur culture in India ?
Start looking beyond information technology and that will take the Indian economy to a higher plane. This is the song that many Indian business houses including IT giants have begun to sing aloud these days.
“In the last 15-20 years, the focus has been more on IT. It is high time we started looking beyond this technology. We need to look at promoting innovations and owner-ship of intellectual properties,” said Infosys Technologies CEO and MD K Gopalakrishnan said at a press conference convened here on Wednesday to announce TES 2008, a three-day entrepreneurial summit organised by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in Bangalore from December 16. TiE is an NGO for promoting entrepreneurship.
Contending that there is no dearth of aspiring entrepreneurs in the country, Gopalakrishnan emphasised the need for creating an eco-system for complete entrepreneurship. “There are a lot of smaller companies that are ready to take risks. Similarly, the country also has venture capitalists who can support these start-up firms. We need to think of ways to create a diverse set of industries,” he said.
Concurring with him, TES 2008 chairperson Ravi Narayan said: “The world may be going slow, but India is emerging in a big way in terms of innovations, both products and services. Another interesting trend is that several Indian IT companies, which used to look at the US market, are now focussing on India.”
He said India had the potential to emerge as leader in the cellular technology space.
Speaking on the occasion, TiE (Bangalore chapter) president Pradeep Kar said the TES summit will witness the participation of stakeholders from diverse sectors including manufacturing, social entrepreneurship, clean technology, real estate, retail and franchising, education, healthcare and sports management. The theme of the summit is 1inclusive entrepreneurship. A total of 1,500 delegates are expected to participate in the summit. “We hope to mentor about 300 aspiring entrepreneurs,” Kar added.
Related Posts
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave a Reply