indiareportfinal-14Business India 2014: A Bright Future?

8/12/2019 indiareportfinal-14Business India 2014: A Bright Future?

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mage courtesy of Prayudi Hartono


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BUSINESS INDIA 2014: A BRIGHT FUTURE IDG CONNECT

A lot of people work night shifts in Bangalore;

IT people, BPO people or call centre peoplereturning home at 2am or 3am, Brinda SNarayan, author of Bangalore Calling, a novelabout an Indian call centre, told IDG Connect inAutumn 2013. This will come as little surprise toanyone who is familiar with the waves of Indianoutsourcing which have gone on over the lastdecade. But what did surprise Narayan, who grewup in Bangalore herself, was the sheer volumeof parents who felt they had to wait up for theirgrown up kids to come home.

A large number of mothers and fathers [I spoketo whilst I was researching my book] said, Oh Ihave to get up at 3am and I have to open the door

for [my son or daughter], heat up dinner, keep

them company and chat with them. So I said,why dont you just give them a key? And theywere really appalled that I was asking them thatquestion.

These parents are completely disrupting theirown sleep cycles because they dont want tomiss out on the contact [with their children],explained Narayan [But] what I realised is thatthese families are really buering the eect

of these dierent time zones [many young

Indians are working in]. This helps internationalcompanies. It is not easy to keep people workingat very odd times, because they can lose socialcontact with their community.

Bangalore panorama

Image courtesy of Ted Drake via Flickr

INTRODUCTION:

Read the full interviews here:

Anil Valluri:

President of India & SAARC Operations, NetApp

Brinda S. Naraya:

Author, Bangalore Calling

Hareesh Tibrewala:

CEO of Social Wavelength

Kalaivani Chittaranjan:

MD and CEO of eMudhra Consumer Services

Neeraj Varma:

Director of Sales for Xilinx India

In some ways this story highlights the current

business situation on the ground in modernIndia. Because beyond the tales of a falling rupee,conversely buoyant stock market, and an up-and-coming election, the supreme rule of the familyunderpins business.

There is a vast youth population, which isconsistently up-skilling itself, driven on byambitious parents. This constant attemptat upward mobility means in turn there is amassively escalating middle class, whilst budgetservices - like call centres - which India hasbecome known for are being gradually undercutby ever-cheaper markets.

India is clearly at a cross roads, yet despite

negativity from outside the country, there isremarkable positivity on the ground. Over thelast few months IDG Connect has been speakingto thought leaders from a variety of companiesin order to build a picture of the businesslandscape. In the course of these conversationsa remarkably consistent view has emerged of anIndia, which whilst not without problems, appearsto have a lot of hope for the future.

Subram Natarajan:

Executive - Deep Computing, IBM India South Asia

Suchit Bachalli:

Executive Vice President, Unilog Content Solutions

SomPal Choudhury:

MD, Analog Devices (ADI)

V C Gopalratnam:

CIO, Cisco India

Venkat Viswanathan:

CEO and co-Founder of LatentView
http://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4025/india-netapp-president-talks-jugaad-cios%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/3978/-bangalore-calling-it-enclaves-vs-rest-city%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4330/how-indians-use-social-media%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/3558/banking-digital-identities-india%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4155/india-engineering-returning-diaspora%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/blog-abstract/4692/indian-iits-erickshaws-research-ibm-clusters%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/blog-abstract/3677/bangalore-products-vs-services%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4891/adi-interview-indian-manufacturing-local-innovationhttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4830/corporate-india-us-cisco-cio-explains-difference%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4544/interview-indian-data-analytics-consumer-explosion%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4544/interview-indian-data-analytics-consumer-explosion%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4830/corporate-india-us-cisco-cio-explains-difference%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4891/adi-interview-indian-manufacturing-local-innovationhttp://www.idgconnect.com/blog-abstract/3677/bangalore-products-vs-services%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/blog-abstract/4692/indian-iits-erickshaws-research-ibm-clusters%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4155/india-engineering-returning-diaspora%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/3558/banking-digital-identities-india%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4330/how-indians-use-social-media%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/3978/-bangalore-calling-it-enclaves-vs-rest-city%3Fregion%3Dasiahttp://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/4025/india-netapp-president-talks-jugaad-cios%3Fregion%3Dasia


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Dirty, straggling houses, with now and then an unexpected court composed of buildings as ill-proportioned and deformed as the half-naked children that wallow in the kennels. It sounds like a scenefrom modern India, but is in fact Charles Dickens description of Seven Dials in London.

The parallels with 19th century industrialising Britain are plain to see: from the slums that exist cheek-by-jowl with a rapidly expanding middle class to the print newspaper trade, which is growing so rapidly thateven second hand papers have a market. Yet this marks a conict of its very own:

Look at how a typical developing nation grows, Som Pal Choudhury, MD of Analog Devices explained. Itgoes from agriculture to manufacturing, then as the country grows, it moves into services. India misseda step. It went from agro economy straight to a services economy without transitioning through the

THE MANY DIVISIONS OF INDIA

manufacturing sector. Now with all the young people joining our workforce, we have to expand beyondour typical white collar services sector and move into manufacturing.

Over the last decade or so, India has carved a niche as an outsourcing destination for foreignbusinesses. If you visit Bangalore and you go into these IT complexes theyre very dierent from the

city outside the complex, said Narayan. It is almost like youre entering a very dierent world. You

might be going into Singapore, yet you come out and there are all these pot holes across the street [and

people living in slums]. It is not equal between those inside the concrete complex who are very well paidand public roads are almost falling apart. There is a very stark divide in the city today.

On top of which, all the furious activity has left Bangalore bursting at its seams, Suchit BachalliExecutive Vice President and Co-founder of Unilog Content Solutions told us. It is half as liveable todayas it was 10 years ago. The housing is extremely expensive and for those who can aord it; it is hard to

ignore the fact you dont have drinking water out of your tap, you dont have 24/7 power and you stepout of your house in to a trac jam it takes an hour and a half to do 10 14 KM.

This situation is unsustainable in a huge number of dierent ways, not least because India is gradually

being undercut by ever cheaper markets. Its a relentless trend, wrote Mike Magee for IDG Connect,and it means companies are looking outside India to countries where prices and the standard of livingare much lower. The fear is that at some point the drive to keep costs low will hit a brick wall, and in 10years there will be nowhere left where labour is cheap, leaving eight billion people on the planet lookingfor work.

Bangalore KFC & cows

Image courtesy of Christopher

Neugebauer via Flickr


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THE NEED FOR FEWER SERVICES & MORE INNOVATIONOutside tangible divisions of wealth andpoverty, there are a number of stark faultlines that run through India and impact thebusiness landscape. The most notable ofthese is that India is very traditional and verytraditionalist. Families put their children undera lot of pressure to do well, which can come at amarked fear of risk; we all know the clich aboutIndian parents desperately wanting their sons tobe doctors.

This can stie entrepreneurial innovation. The

World Startup Report published in Spring 2013,for example, included a quote from an individualwho said: If you want to get married dont doa startup, whilst the presentation itself added,Its a bad point on the matchmaking checklist,like being a struggling artist (without theglamour). This social point was picked up in acomment on TechCrunch, Getting married andprospective in-laws are a major issue in IndianEntrepreneurship circuit.

Talvinder Singh, Founder of Tushky.comsupplemented this point with a rst-hand

account: [The] World expects you to be somemillionaire by now. Three years is like the litmustest of survival for any startup. And thats whenyou are expected to marry. Well, a broke founder(ok, not really broke. Yet.) of a crazy idea isnt a

hot selling product, after all.

However, as Indian outsourcing begins towane in favour of ever cheaper markets thereis a desperate need for creative thinking andinnovation. Suchit Bachalli, Executive VicePresident and Co-founder of Unilog ContentSolutions told us the real opportunity forIndian companies will be to become innovative.There are companies that are doing softwaredevelopment, but they are told what thesolution is. Very few companies, in my opinion,

There is a make it happen tendency [in Indian IT].

You can conjure up absolutely impossible things out of

nothing in Indian data centres and IT infrastructure.

Anil Valluri, President of India & SAARC Operations at NetApp

are at the problem [solving] end of it and areactually designing solutions and implementingthem worldwide. Yet many Indian companies aresitting on a goldmine of data.

I would like to see India considered as aninnovator, continued Bachalli. The lack ofinnovation bothers [me]. Everyone seems to bevery content with a desk job. In the West its theopposite fear. There the worry is that someonein India or China will take your job. But [I thinkIndians are] taking the wrong kinds of jobs.

The change will necessarily be slow and basedaround professionals mind set, but Bachalliis hopeful. I was at a conclave for Big Data inBangalore [in the Autumn and] it was mostheartening because [whilst] the average Indiansreaction to any new technology is to [talk about]setting up a training institute or [talk about]outsourcing services to the west. I did not hearany of that. The thought process was: this is agreat technology, what are the applications wecan build on it?

Despite a traditionalist mentality there hasalways been a certain spirit of innovationwithin IT departments themselves. Anil Valluri,President of India & SAARC Operations atNetApp talked to IDG Connect about the catch-

all Hindi-Urdu term Jugaad which, literally,means an improvised work-around due to lackof resources, but has come to typify a way ofthinking.

This is [the spirit of] make it happen, Valluritold us. He believes this mentality has dened

Indian IT to date. There is a make it happentendency [in Indian IT]. You can conjure upabsolutely impossible things out of nothing inIndian data centres and IT infrastructure.

Everything is used, he explained. [LocalCIOs] gure out all kinds of things to make it

happen. Indian enterprises are [also] willingto take a lot of risk. I have seen a lot of multi-national companies which are very risk averse.[Indian CIOs are] more savvy from a technologystandpoint than elsewhere the world; they

get [technical] to a point beyond reason. Theyunderstand technology very well and are usuallyfocused on it, sometimes to a point of being verydetrimental to their own interests.

Mix of styles

Image courtesy of myhsu via

Flickr


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The big change for India over the lastfew years is that Indians, who previouslymoved abroad and never returned, havestarted to come back home. This is havinga noticeable impact on business on theground because professionals are nowbringing dierent working practices back

with them.

Talk to any Indian on the planet; theywill all say they came back [to Indiafrom abroad] for family reasons, V CGopalratnam CIO of Cisco India told IDGConnect. [This was certainly] true inmy case. [But] more than that, it wasthe opportunity to be part of somethingdierent. Like many successful Indian

IT professionals, Gopalratnam returnedto India after 17 years in the US becausethings were improving rapidly at home.

The standard of work in India is going up[continuously], Neeraj Varma, Directorof Sales for Xilinx India told us. Costarbitrage is no longer as attractive asit used to be. [And were] increasingly[getting work] because [of our] talent,quality and technology. Back oce

processing and call centres will continueto move to cheaper markets. [But] thevalue-based work will continue [to move toIndia].

India has a young population (median age26.5) of 1.2 billion and the third largesteducation system in the world. Thiscomprises of more than 500 universitiesand around 30,000 colleges, many ofwhich are focused on tech. This representsa huge amount of IT talent and potential.

McKinsey estimates that the US (alone) will

experience a shortage of almost 1.5 millionbig data professionals by 2018. Those typesof jobs can only be lled by economies like

India, said Venkat Viswanathan, CEO andco-Founder of LatentView. [This is a countrywhich] continue[s] to produce large numbers

of educated people who can potentially begroomed into these particular talent gaps.

World business tends to operate from a verywestern point of view, but the unique Indianmind set actually brings some very distinctadvantages. We like to go out and meeta lot of people and make a lot of friends.[This means] Facebook pages from Indiahave a larger number of friends than say theUS, which I think is very cultural, HareeshTibrewala, CEO of Social Wavelength told us,and this approach to communication also hasa noticeable impact on the workplace.

THE FAST RETURNING DIASPORA

Due to this, the government has beenplacing a real emphasis on IndianInstitutes of Technology (IITs) in recentyears. As part of Indias new sciencepolicy, it aims to see the country placedin the top ve global scientic powers

by 2020. All education institutions aremandated with conducting research,Mr. Subram Natarajan, Executive - DeepComputing, IBM India South Asia toldIDG Connect. There is a very consciouseort to improve the skills by government

agencies.

Skills are of continued importance inthis type of market place. The problem,claried Varma, is nding good middle

management project leads, people whohave seven or eight years experience ofthe full project life cycle. Graduates arenot so much of a problem.

This is where the returning diasporaprovides the missing part of the jigsaw.India is really good at services, explainedVarma Weve mastered the art ofservices. [But] an engineer who works fora company [in India] may not get close

to a product lifecycle, hell just be doing asmall piece [and] doesnt get the exposureon a managerial level to complete the fulllife cycle.

Yet the returning diaspora have workedin cutting edge technology. [And] theymake excellent middle management, hecontinues. We have seen them both asour customers and at Xilinx itself. [In fact]over half of [the people we deal with] haveworked in US and returned. This is a veryhealthy trend to help local companies toreally come up with the value.

The way the US has developed [means]there tends to be more of a sense ofindependence. People tend to be moreself-starters. People tend to work [well]on their own. As a result the culture in theorganisation has evolved along those lines,explained Gopalratnam.

Whereas if you look at India - because ofthe way our society is structured - it is a verycollaborative environment. People tend towork better in teams, he continued and theyounger generation coming in makes this[even more pronounced] because everythingthey do is collaborative. That impacts howwork gets done in a US environment vs. anIndian environment. There is a strongersense of community in India than you wouldsee in a western context. [I think] that is thesingle biggest dierence [between the US

and India].

The standard of work in India is going up.

Neeraj Varma, Director of Sales for Xilinx India

Indian Family

Image courtesy of Wen-Yan King via Flickr


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THE IT MARKET REACHES MATURITY

The technological changes which havegradually taken hold across the world nowappear to be hitting India all in one go. In

September, the Times of India reportedthat this year India has seen an 89%increase in smartphone users from 2012.Mobility is putting a lot of pressure onsystem, Anil Valluri President of India &SAARC Operations at NetApp India toldIDG Connect. The Times of India articlecompared accelerated smartphonegrowth to that in Brazil, but with the

important caveat that Indians are skippinga generation of multimedia phones.Prashant Singh, MD of Nielsen India toldthe paper: Users will migrate straightfrom a feature phone to a smartphone.

This in turn is having an impact on ITacross the board, from BYOD to itscorresponding security concerns butabove all in the explosion of data. The[sudden] data explosion has hit Indiaharder, said Valluri. Because we didnthave internet access in the remote areas

[until recently], it was only the cities. Butwith the smartphones taking over, theclass B and class C towns are now all onthe net.

To add to this the population is growingand the new generation born and raisedwith gadgets are increasingly looking forservices online. The government is usingthis to facilitate better processes, such as

The most striking Indian internet innovations wont come

from big institutions or companies moving online. Theywill come from Indians solving local problems.

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google

People with no access to the internet are

now able to make use of online facilities.

Ms. Kalaivani Chittaranjan, MD and CEO of eMudhra

ocial identity documents. Ms. Kalaivani

Chittaranjan, MD and CEO of eMudhra toldIDG Connect about how the government

has established cyber kiosks whichprovide instant services for citizens:

These people may not be literate, butthey can walk in say what they want andthe information can be printed out thereand then. This means people with noaccess to the internet are now able tomake use of online facilities.

Problems associated with poorinfrastructure are so intense that a smallnumber of cutting edge new startups arelooking to oer creative solutions. Google

Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt wrotein an opinion piece for the The Times ofIndia in the Spring:

The most striking Indian internetinnovations wont come from biginstitutions or companies moving online.They will come from Indians solvinglocal problems. He went on to cite thecase of Redbus, which took the mess ofmultiple bus companies working acrossthe country and provided an answer.Schmidts conclusion to this was, Youdont have to aim for foreign marketsto be successful. You just have to solvelocal problems in a way thats globallyapplicable.

Mall Bangalore

Image courtesy of Saad Faruque via Flickr


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BUSINESS INDIA 2014: A BRIGHT FUTURE

The western media is full of stories about how India is failing, yet the picture from thought leaderson the ground is far more positive. Of course India has its problems. It is a country characterisedby division, which is currently battling the transition from cheapest outsourcing destination toinnovative strategic market.

However, all the building blocks appear to be in place for future success. India has a massivepopulation of young people who are consistently encouraged by their families to upskill themselves,while the government is actively pushing educational excellence. It has a large returning diasporawhich is bringing best practices from abroad, back home. And it is has its own unique approaches tothe workplace, which hinge on collaboration and a spirit of make it happen.

I think people need to understand, concluded Gopalratnam, CIO of Cisco that India is not justabout talent or cost. It is actually a business opportunity. This point was vigorously seconded byRao Yanamandra on our website. He went on to add: [It] can even be extended to other developingcountries in Asia.

CONCLUSION

About IDG Connect

IDG Connect, a division of International Data Group (IDG), the worlds largest technology media company,produces, publishes and distributes local IT and business information on behalf of a truly global client base.

Established in 2005, we have a fully nurtured audience of 2.6 million professional decision-makers from 130countries, and an extended reach of 38 million names. This lets us conduct research, create independentanalysis and opinion articles, and drive long-term engagement between professionals and B2B marketersworldwide. For more information visitwww.idgconnectmarketers.com
http://www.idgconnectmarketers.com/http://www.idgconnectmarketers.com/http://www.idgconnectmarketers.com/

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indiareportfinal-14Business India 2014: A Bright Future?