Industry–Academia-Government Partnerships creating successful product businesses

Indian IT companies have created & promoted brand India to international level by relentless focus on high quality service delivery, especially to clients in USA & in Europe. Not only have these companies become synonyms of trust & dynamism but also one of the favorites companies to invest for non-Indian

Now lets take a closer look at the influence of these companies locally. Understandably these companies have stronger influence in India. Local techincal people now have world class companies to work for without leaving home country.
College students have more options to choose & ofcourse better starting salaries.

In short, sons & daughters of middle class family parents have easy access to a career path with decent salaries enabling better lifestyle. Certain items like buying
a house or a four wheeler are now within reach of middle class Indians, which before economic unfencing, use to be distant dream. Also work related international travels
have now become common perk for their workforce.

A sound & rosy picture so far.

Sadly, Indian IT MNC’s have foccussed too extremely on outsourcing based service model. They failed to outgrow themselves due to easy access of outsourcing revenue & dont seem to have realised that could they have played much bigger role only to boost their revenue with sustained growth & lesser dependency on outsourcing revenue.

Even today when I visit local computer store I still find plenty of software products & packages made by non-Indian companies. Not even a single computer game or mobile phone
based application I find which says manufactured by either of these IT power houses, leave aside any complex software.
Why do we then claim as IT super power?

They have been so ignorant & negligent about local market potential that one of the prominent cell phone provider awarded IT service contract to an American firm. Indian IT
companies got beaten in their own backyard.

I work in newly constructed campus in Pune, of one such acclaimed IT company & instead of using a sophisticated security system they have taken traditional approach of hiring dozens of human security guards who wouldnt dare to check the head of Information Security
because he doesnt want them to !!!

With flaunters as executives, expecting this world class company to partner or develop their own security system is simply hopeless & reflects the low esteem mindset towards
its own employees & itself.

Due to snubbing of local markets, young talented employees have growing frustration of working on second grade outsourcing projects that too at odd hours of day & not being able to use their creativity to develop something new which would bring satisfaction & sense of achievement to young, aspiring & want-to-do Indians.

The last aspect I want to cover is – apathy of these firms to their own well being & operational efficiency. Its well known how Silicon Valley of India got transformed
into a horrible mess of traffic congestion. (Whether its called Banglore or Banglaroo may be important to worthless politicians, but for common city resident whats it important
is hassle free & peaceful life with ease of transportation. I feel shocked at degree to which all the election promises, of Indian politicians, are off the dire needs of
Nation & common citizens).

The mistakes made in Indian Silicon Valley have been ridiculously repeated in Pune. Infrastructure woes of Hinjewadi, Pune are increasing every week. Every day there is an accident(s) on the small strecth of 3-5 kms of highway & the Hinjewadi signal junction is
always jammed. Very soon remaining phases of the area will be functional & more people will flow into this area, which means even more accidents – leading to need for more hospitals, medical professionals, traffic signals, cops etc etc…. needs can be unending.

But why blame these private firms, isnt infrastructure problems related to local municipality & govenrment?
My argument is if these companies can aggresively approach & undertake projects from foreign companies, government bodies to resolve their problems by analysing foreign situations & problems then why cant they proactively approach local machinery to do the same? Wouldnt it be easier to solve problems directly related to our own experience instead of unrelated problems of
foreign countries? Where is the much marketed vision & dynamisim?

Dont they realise more commute time means less employee efficiency & even worst – risking lives
of young & committed employees due to local infrastructre deficiency?
Before opening new centres in constrained area, why not initiate dailogue with local government officials for infrastructure planning? Again … questions can be many more.

Since common Indian has relatively low self esteem plus our extremly adjusting nature when combined with the exploitive, spineless & unethical politicians of the country, I strongly believe that Global Indian firms, with strong experience & exposure to developed societies
in the west, have bigger role to play in transforming society & life of common man in India.
But only if they realise so. Hope recent Rupee appreciation would force them to desert comfort zone for real rosy future.

Realisation, however, is not the only ingredient. Tremndeous will-power & belief will be essential since it would need interaction with government agencies directly under control of power abusive & fickle minded politicians.

Even if these firms admit that its social problem to be solved by government, then where do their employees live?
Yes in the same society along with non-thinkers. Loose handling of civilians by the administraion is predominant in India, because of letting non-thinkers take lead in co-ordinating results are evident – frequent sexual abuse of female employees, loss of employees in traffic accidents, abuse of companies automobile resources by no training the external drivers … the list is big.

Due to failure of out-of-box thinking of CEO’s, management and industrial leaders we have let fools control our lives.

Growing business and profit is important but whats the point if there is no smooth personal life outside office ?

Its time to get out of hangover of colonial era and start acting proactivly and collectively for society and future Indian generations to address our problems too.