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Special Session - Keynote address by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Former President of India February 21, 2008
Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Former President of India was the Key note spekaer at the Special Session conducted by NASSCOM at the India Leadership Forum 2008. Here is an excerpt of the speech along with the audio of the session as well.+
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam [25:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam [20:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadBurntout at mid-levels February 17, 2008
I am posting this query post the conference and I would request Mr. Subroto Bagchi and/or Mr. Jerry Rao to kindly respond. My query is regarding what can be done to tackle the issue of the increasing burntout rate of mid level IT industry workers. This trend has been increasingly evident in the recent couple of years where mid-level managers (from the offshore service sector) and junior staff from the BPO sectors, are choosing to move out of the IT industry, unable to find a decent work life balance. The nature of their work has become increasingly monotonous, due to the revenue generation pressures of the companies forcing the sales forces to sell a majority of staff augmentation kind of work vs. full life cycle projects. The leadership of most companies are more focused on numbers than paying attention to what this group of people are going through. For the most part, these people are high performers, who get paid high performances bonuses, which make it easy for management to not notice them too closely assuming that are happy as they are compensated well. There is virtually no one to coach/mentor these people. Most of these people, are people with a very middle class lifestsyle, so once their earnings reach a certain point, monetary compensation doesn’t charm them further. These people are looking for being able to make valuable contributions with their skillsets. Most of them, being in their 30s are starting families and the need for a balanced lifestyle is critical. (A recent study in Mumbai shows that 2 out of every 5 marriages in the last 5 years have ended in a divorce and life-work balance was indicated as a major contributor). The industry is losing this invaluable talent at a point where it needs them most. What in your opinion can be done at an industry level to control this attrition?
Session 9A: Key Technology Trends and Models Impacting Markets : Business Leadership Update, Jawahar Bekay,Collabera February 15, 2008
Jawahar Bekay, India Head & Chief Strategy Officer, Collabera spoke on day 3 at the Session 9A: Key Technology Trends and Models Impacting Markets : Business Leadership Update at the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2008.
Please view the presentation below.
21st Century Innovation Hubs February 15, 2008
Thats the title of the paper we wrote to serve as a framework for discussion of Nasscom’s 2nd P2P breakway session. The group, moderated by DataQuest Chief Editor, Prasanto Roy, discussed whether the globalization of innovation was for real. He started off by giving the much talked example of innovation from India ( not from the IT sector though)- the Nano.
The premise of the discussion was that Israel, India and China were emerging innovation springs- Israel being a proven player while India and China are strong emerging contenders.
The nature of the topic being broad, and being one that almost everyone present had a point of view on, the discussions were lively and brought to the table both theoretical frameworks as well as anecdotal data.
There were some that felt that innovation should not be limited to IP creation- India had pioneered numerous process innovations on the way to becoming the most preferred IT outsourcing hub. There was another point of view that the tech innovation being seen today is mostly being seen in R&D labs of MNCs.
My view on this was as follows- for innovative products to be created, access to, and knowledge of the market is critical- with the markets exploding in both India and China, there are a lot of below the radar start ups that are focusing on developing IP led solutions for these markets. Ashwin from Nasscom added that it was also necessary for the market to have early adopters for innovative ideas to succeed.
We also discussed the need for the right social mind set for the creation of an innovation ecosytem- in the Silicon Valley for example, the value chain that supports a start up is willing to share the risk of th start up. In India on the other hand, the risk of failure and need for a secure job often result in good ideas not seeing the light of day. In this connection, the contrasting example of Israel was cited- the country has leveraged adversity to create some of the most innovative products.
Another interesting point brought up by the CTO of KPIT Cummins is that the education system, starting from primary school, must focus on kindling curiosity and encourage enquiry rather than over emphasize “rote learning”.
There were others who argued that just as much as India needs innovation, Innovation needs India - to underscore the point that with the combined purchasing power of India and China in the foreseeable future, innovations tailored for these markets are inevitable.
Prasanto summed up the session with time running out- but not before sufficient threads had been created for further debate and discussions to continue….
NASSCOM Global Leadership Award Winners February 15, 2008
The setting was the spacious Hyatt Ground and the open air atmosphere gave a special aura to the award ceremony.
There were three major awards and fittingly enough, the awards went to three major stalwarts. Unfortunately, none of the winners could be present at the event to accept their awards. Their CIOs did the honors.
Here are the award winners.
The Business Leader Award was won by Mr.Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways. Willie Walsh is steering British Airways, the world’s largest airline network, covering over 550 global destinations. The airline has been flying to India since the 1920s and has been engaging with leading Indian IT-BPO partners for the last 15 years. Using state-of-the-art IT solutions provided by its internal team and close-knit family of technology providers, BA has been able to reduce the cost of its IT operations; right-size its workforce; revolutionize travel for customers; web-enable its booking; and absorb network, storage and processing increases.
The Business Leader Award was won by Mr.John Chambers, Chairman of Cisco. As leader of Cisco, John Chambers has virtually redefined the way business is done in the Internet age. His focus on technology, innovation and talent development have made him a global business leader. At the same time, Mr. Chambers has been committed to making Cisco a major player in the Indian market. It is his vision and unwavering commitment that we wish to acknowledge and recognize through the NASSCOM Business Leadership Award.
And finally, the Global Indian Award was won by Mr.Ratan Tata. Ratan is a luminary who has brought fame and glory to India and made us all very proud. His vision and leadership across industry–IT, telecom, automotive, steel and hospitality has made India synonymous with innovation and quality. The man behind the company’s biggest recent coup—the cheapest car in the world, the Nano—has virtually put India’s automobile sector on the international map. Being lauded as a path-breaking design innovation, the Nano has captured the imagination of the world.
Top technology trends to watch out for February 15, 2008
Today at the Nasscom Summit, I attended an interesting session on the top trends in technology – Bruce Richardson of AMR Research talked about some interesting trends that included the usual suspects like SaaS and 3D Internet ( Second Life etc) and some not so obvious ones such as Data Visualization and “Pedias”. Data Visualization is an area that enables a business to explore and analyze enterprise information in ways that are far beyond what technologies such as search and BI can. Bruce mentioned a company called Endeca, which has strategic investments from SAP and IBM. Endeca uses the concept Guided Summarization and has created a new technology platform – Information Access Platform- to do this. A company worth watching!
Bruce also spoke of web 2.0 applied to the enterprise world, an idea that is gaining ground and was also the theme of the Day 1 Breakaway session.
Another interesting insight from Bruce was on the need, in a country like the US with its aging population demographics, for example have an urgent need to institutionalize knowledge and this will spur the demand for KM systems.
The other speaker David Levin from United Business Media spoke of the concept of Immersive Marketing and Metaverse and showcased some cool apps developed by their company.
I could not listen completely to the 3rd speaker from British Telecom as I had to get into another session. But what I heard from Bruce in particular left with me a lot of thoughts to ponder over.
Three threads: Innovation, the Nano & web 2.0 February 15, 2008
It would’nt be too far off the mark to say that these were the common threads that ran through many sessions. If the speakers at the plenary spoke about the different facets of innovation - be it through gamechanging market play or through a globalised strategy, many speakers - from within and outside India - constantly referred to the Nano. Be it the radical price point (though Anand Mahindra pointed out at the plenary that the car may not actually retail at 100k) or the engineering innovations, suddenly an entire technology industry was looking to a company from the smokestack economy for lessons in strategy!
Other sesssions about customer interaction- be they about deepening customer relationships or transforming enterprises into more customer centric ones, every speaker turned to the new web as a key tool for achieving these objectives.
In the P2P Connect session on web 2.0, the nature of debate clearly reflected a corporate India that is ambiguous to these new technologies. Participants spoke of how companies really wished to “gag” or fire employees who were outspoken; at the other end of the spectrum, the CEO of an online services player, where one employee had posted blogs critical of the content published by his company, often critiquing language and style, said that they reacted by moving the employee to quality control, where he could put his analysis to use! Clearly a mixed bag.
Consensus however on the point that it would be well neigh impossible to regulate this medium - companies were better off adopting transparent and up front communication policies.
Reviewing Tarun Khanna’s Book, ‘Billions of Entrepreneurs’ February 15, 2008
China and India are home to one-third of the world’s population. And they’re undergoing social and economic revolutions that are capturing the best minds–and money–of Western business. In Billions of Entrepreneurs, Tarun Khanna examines the entrepreneurial forces driving China’s and India’s trajectories of development. He shows where these trajectories overlap and complement one another–and where they diverge and compete. He also reveals how Western companies can participate in this development.
Each chapter compares China and India on a broad range of factors in entrepreneurship, including access to capital, freedom and reliability of information, governmental involvement, and infrastructure. Khanna examines the landscape of big, medium, and small entrepreneurship, including rural health-care initiatives and even Bollywood.
He also describes how indigenous and foreign entrepreneurs could get a foothold, how China and India relate to their own diasporas, and how entrepreneurial activity is reshaping both countries for the better.
Engaging and incisive, this book is a critical resource for anyone working in China or India or planning to do business in these two countries.
You can listen to the podcast or read his interview at Harvard’s Working Knowledge website.
Tarun Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School in the Strategy group. He is a co-editor of the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy and the Journal of International Business Studies. He works with entrepreneurs, companies, and NGOs in emerging markets worldwide. In 2007, he was elected a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
A Mango for their Apple? February 14, 2008
One of the unusual companies at the NASSCOM summit this year is Bangalore-based Mango Technologies. The company has an unusual business strategy forthe over-crowded value -added-services space - enabling low end phones to access richer applications either over an SMS or a packet data carrier. A key constraint right now that prevents lower end phones - the ones that retail between Rd 1,000-4,000 or so - from running an OS like Symbian (that enables rich applications to be run) is the memory requirement. Mango is working on a platform that has one-tenth the memory footprint of current mobile OS’. According to CEO Sunil Maheshwari, who met up with a colleague from Prayag yesterday, the first phones with Mango tech will ship late this year. The company is currently working with chipset companies, device OEMS to bundle its software. Then the challenge will be to create a developer ecosystem to create applications for the new platform and working with telcos to get them to market and support these applications. A huge challenge ahead, but Maheshwari is unfazed. He says his company knows what has to be done to achieve this vision, and that they will get there.
In a VAS market crowded with “me-too” players, Mango stands out. Not suprising that they made it to the award list of NASSCOM’s IT Innovators.
The 5 Things That I Did Not Know About Egypt February 14, 2008
Last night’s glitzy Leadership Award ceremony was sponored by Egypt’s equivalent of NASSCOM, the ITIDA (Information Technology Industry Development Agency). I got to pick up one of their booklets where they had outlined the advantages that their country has to offer in the realm of IT. Here are 5 points that caught my fancy.
1) Egypt has one of the World’s lowest telecom costs
2) World Bank has named Egypt as the leading global economic reformer in 2007 driven by tax, customs adn financial sector reforms.
3) Egypt has a unique multilingual English, French, German Italian adn Spanish speaking talent pool, thanks to its geographic proximity to Europe.
4) Egypt is emerging as a key partner location for the Indian outsourcing sector. I was surprised to know that Satyam and Wipro have already set up their facilities there. Multinationals like Unilever, Vodafone, IBM, Microsoft, P&G are already there.
5) Egypt has one of the lowest attrition.
And here I am who kept thinking that all that Egypt has to offer is the Spinx and the pyramids!
