- |
NASSCOM 2008 - About
- Home |
NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2009 Official Website February 7, 2009
NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2009 Official Website
NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2009 Official Blog February 7, 2009
NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2009 Official Blog
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?
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.
An Unconference on Web 2.0 and Blogging February 13, 2008
It was a refreshing change to see a complete overhaul of the usual conference format. Even if it was just for one session. When Sharad Sharma, CEO of Yahoo R&D, started the session on blogging, he intrigued the audience when he said that there won’t be a speaker. He then proceeded to say that there will be many speakers and promptly pointed his finger to the crowd. He said that the event will follow the Barcamp model where the audience is involved in the flow of the discussion. Everyone has equal right and in-fact encouraged to their points of views.
The success of an unconference likes in the participation of the audience and Sharad made for a great moderator who encouraged the crowd to open up. Understandably, in the beginning, the crowd was a bit reticent and Sharad had to force it across a few folks. That greatly helped break the ice and as the crowd warmed up, there was more points flying across than he could handle…which is always a good sign!
Most of the discussion was on blogging and Sharad started by focusing on internal blogging within an organization. While many agreed that blogging is something that’s important, there were very little corporates in India who embraced it. Amongst the reasons, the most important was the fear of lack of control over what people say. A few corporate examples were discussed and the conclusion was that there should be healthy open culture in the organization and the ability to digest and value critical feedback.
The second reason for internal blogging not taking off was the lack of interest levels amongst the employees in blogging internally. This could be a reflection of the lack of management support. The drive should come from the top and a quick look around shows that the best organizations that embrace internal blogging effectively are the ones where the CEOs or the top management understanding the value of corporate blogging.
There was a discussion if blogging is really that popular in India and is it just a hype? Sharad had a good answer to this. While he agreed that there is an element of hype, blogging will definitely go mainstream and turn out to be an important medium in a couple of years.
An employee from Logica said how the internal blog was very effective when there was a top management change. When a new CEO came on board, there was a lot of questions amongst the rank and file. The CEO, Andy Greene, started a blog to explain his stand and that helped greatly in allaying fears and explaining his vision for the company.
When Sharad pulled the plug after an hour, the crowd was just beginning to warm up and could have gone for a few more hours. The session, in terms of sheer participation, was the best of the event so far.
Are Blogs, Web 2.0 & Mobile applications Heating Up Marketing Communications? February 13, 2008
The central threads of Web 2.0 - blogs, wikis, user generated content, bookmarking, social networking groups – are not just providing the wiring for the social web – they are beginning to make their presence felt within the business web too, with some good results. Companies are now beginning to use these tools to infuse new life into marketing plans, intranets and corporate websites. We strongly believe that the use of these tools is increasingly relevant for IT businesses given that they are so knowledge centric.
The key difference here from an earlier approach is that while traditional media relies on specialist Intermediaries – PR firms/PR departments, Customer Relationship departments, corporate communication teams – to spread the message (you may still need them to create the message), in the web 2.0 world disintermediation is itself a powerful strategy.
Another key point is mobility – with networks reaching penetration maturity – its natural that that mobility forms an important part of the new change. We think that mobility can be grouped along with other 2.0 tool elements. With more phones running full feature web browsers and mobile networks faster than before, web 2.0 applications and elements translate quickly and effectively into this new medium
The important thing about a web 2.0 strategy is that it needs to be seen as an approach rather than as individual elements. While a press release is a self contained universe – it tells you about the announcement, what the CEO has to say plus it often has a brief corporate profile – a web 2.0 element or “webot” is different. A webot – which may be a blog post, a user group discussion thread, customer forum – individually does not communicate much. To a user who is not part of the user community/forum, the context may seem less complete. To make an impact and deliver on the promise of the medium, companies need to set in place a strategy and reflect that in a sustained program to get results. So, one blog a quarter, a customer forum that’s updated only every few months, just won’t work. If your marketing communication is going to be sporadic, a traditional approach may work much better.
If you are interested in these issues and want to hear other viewpoints, it may be a good idea to drop by today at the NASSCOM P2P Connect forum at the Networking Lounge between 3.45- 4.30. The topic for debate is How Blogs, Web 2.0 &
Mobile applications are Heating Up Marketing Communications?
