Archive for March, 2008
Software is still Soft!
Hardly a day passes by without having to hear about a new bug in Windows! No major commercial software application lives its life healthy, even for a few weeks, without a patch coming to its rescue. Hundreds of thousands of small, medium and large software programs that the software developers around the world write are delivered with bugs that come with it for free and are ready to fly right on the face of the user at the first given opportunity. Nobody will take a software engineer to the court saying his/her software had a bug for he/she will quote the fourth law of ‘software physics’, namely, “no software is ever written bug free”! ‘No test can prove a software program bugs-free, so, why ever bother to write one’ would be the argument ‘your honour’ will be subjected to in any case. Seem the elite practitioners of the technology in the software industry, would rather like to take comfort in this eternal knowledge and continue to enjoy producing bug compatible software programs until eternity.
Again I say this is a must read from Michael Cusumano!
www.nasscom.org/custompages/nasscom2006/presentations/16thfeb/Michael_A_Cusumano.ppt
What a great period for innovation!
What a great period of time this is? Someone asked me why the other day and said the fundamentals of economies and companies look weak, stock markets are falling fast around the world, major currencies are getting weaker such as the US Dollar, companies are going bust and nothing looks good all around including the general sentiment of people. My response was these are times that I love, because this is where real value gets unlocked and what separates the boys from the men so to speak. This is where fundamentals play out and sentiment and fashions go out the door.
Helping SMEs Go Global (Part 3): Building Dynamic Capability
Some preliminary lessons from my research on internationalizing emerging companies relates to dynamic capability which refers to, according to experts Connie Helfat and colleagues, “the capacity of an organization to purposefully create, extend, or modify its resource base”. And of course, organizational capabilities are an important part of that resource base.
Indian IT Industry – whether we will lose it to China ?
The Indian IT Industry for more than 2 decades has shared high growth and led into country’s economy boom and also increase in consumption power. However as the time pasts, we have our own competitors emerged and today they are significantly grown their market in this Industry. One of the key competitors for this service industry is China, as they also have surplus human resources. In the recent past they addressed their weaknesses by improving the communications, open policies for trade and renewed education systems. The reason they are found as key competitor is their trade mission “Produce in mass, with low margin (ie, low profit) and earn more”. It is different from what we do here, “produce with good margin (ie, good profit)”. Even in service industry, their charging is less compared to India. They work for more than 12 hrs/day (we expect 8 to 10 hrs. Work) and they are more flexible. Many of the MNC’s started their delivery centers in China and looking for more. Currently china is a growing Red alert for Indian IT&BPO Industry.
How organisations can harness the power of Web 2.0 (NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 – 33rd session)
As part of NASSCOM’s Emerging Companies Forum – Marketing, this was the 33rd meeting of NCR companies on 14th March 2008 (Friday) on “How organisations can harness the power of Web 2.0?” There was a good blend of professionals gathered to listen to Amit Ranjan, Co-Founder of SlideShare. And as the slide deck (below) will show, there’s a fair bit of activity happening in India on those fronts.
Why is Private Enterprise still “Dirty” in India?
Why is Private Enterprise still “Dirty” in India?
I have been a wee bit busy this month and have not been able to post on this blog. I was going to do a piece on On-demand mobile content idea. But I have been troubled for some time since the case involving NASSCOM President and former HP India head, Mr. Som Mittal’s personal responsibility into the unfortunate incident with the BPO employee was brought into focus.
Defining the Future of Employability
The steady growth of Indian economy over the last few years has created multiple opportunities for the country’s youth, who are looking beyond the traditional options of engineering, medicine or law when it comes to pursuing a career. Across sectors like aviation, telecom, insurance, IT, manufacturing, retail or real estate- there are several emerging areas providing excellent options for career seekers. For instance a career in IT is no longer limited to only programming or managing projects, IT Infrastructure Management is the new buzzword in the sector. A BPO career need not necessarily be a Call-Center job anymore, it can be researching and developing knowledge bank in exciting areas like Equity Research or Clinical Research. A career is retail sector is not limited to the role of a Store Manager; there are critical roles like Supply Chain Management or Merchandizing which are rewarding both in terms of job content as well as compensation.
Building your Business on Ideas
Intellectual property (IP) has become an important differentiator, especially for the information technology industry. As science and technology advance, the value of an IT organization is largely measured by its IP output. IP is no longer an idea that only needs to be protected, but a tool that you can leverage to create revenue and remain competitive.
The Tiger and the India Innovation Fund
1411 tigers in the country – the figure was splashed across every major newspaper not too long ago and even found its way into the Finance Minister’s budget speech. The alarm bells, if they weren’t ringing yet, have taken on a fairly deafening character. The news channels covered the single piece of statistic with the detail and the drama that we have used to seeing from them for even as ‘newsworthy’ a happening as the visit of the Bacchans to the neighborhood grocery store.
