Green Shoots of Recovery

Friends

Its amazing how a couple of weeks of “feel good” can transform a recession of sentiment that we have been experiencing in our country into a revival of the halcyon days of a couple of years back. A rampaging stock market, a revival in the fortunes of many domestic industries and a strong new Government promising all the right investments and changes in policy to enable infrastructure, healthcare, education and even exports to see the green shoots of economic recovery ‘ all this and more good news have made many people believe that happy days are indeed here again!
The good news about this relatively slow period that the industry has seen in the last six months and more is that some burning issues are now been addressed by industry, academic institutions and the government. One of the most worthy experiences I have been part of is the CII initiative in Maharashtra to empanel companies that are willing to extend a helping hand to al interested academic institutions through a collaborative assessment process and the establishment of IT finishing schools in the premises of the institution. At a time when employment is still a tough ask for many worthy engineering and IT graduates, the willingness to support the colleges in their endeavour has been welcome by all participants and will soon be a model worthy of replication across the country.

For a long time technology has been the holy Mecca of the graduates of educational institutions but now the time may have come for technology to become the enabler of better education. CISCO Systems the exemplar in all matters pertaining to networking and unified communications has taken major leaps in enabling this with their superior telepresence video-conferencing capabilities and the acquisition of Webex given them an edge in enabling learner centric education. Global Talent Track the Pune company which has now spread its wings to Punjab, Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir and even Malaysia with its unique model of collaborations ‘ with Government, Academia and Technology providers has enabled the industry to provide the expertise needed by students in the classroom and may well augur a new generation of highly employable graduates even as the recession subsides and placements starts at a brisk pace all over again.

So is all well? Not yet but there are stirrings of life which should serve as a call to action! To enable India’s green shoots to flourish and IT to be the favoured destination again, each of the players- in the IT eco-system ‘ large firms, entrepreneurs, academic institutions, associations , financial institutions and even the Government must demonstrate the willingness to go the extra mile in the next six months. Clearing the way for private sector entry into higher education, substantial investments in infrastructure and extension of the STPI scheme - lets see the new Government making all this happen for us !

Ganesh

The Visa issue

The H1B and L1 Visa issue - the gathering storm !
The introduction of the H1B and L1 Visa reforms bill in the US Senate by Assistant Majority Leader Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Charles Grassley has caused the predictable shock wave to spread across the Indian outsourcing industry. The consolation is that this is not an unexpected development and in many meetings with the staffers of the Senators in Washington DC and a personal chat with Senator Grassley in March, the imminent introduction of the bill was never in doubt. It is more the implications of its contents and the likelihood of its successful passage that is creating murmurs in IT Boardrooms today.
The ramifications of this bill becoming law are obvious. The same Senators in the previous Congress had introduced a bill seeking to limit the number of H1B visas which are intended primarily to augment US resources with highly skilled foreign workers. The fact that it did not go through is as much due to the Indian industry’s own efforts as the opposition it faced from the American technology sector which relies on manpower from all over the world for its own needs. This time however the addition of the L1 visa in its scope which is primarily a visa used for intra company transfer between locations and the suggestion of a 50:50 clause which would prohibit any additional visas to firms that already have over fifty percent of their staff in the US as H1B or L1 Visa holders threaten to put a spanner in the works of only the Indian firms since the American firms would not have to restructure their workforce to meet a fifty percent condition.
The additional problem this time around is the level of unemployment in the US and the general negative sentiment in the country. The facts of course are that last year less than 12,000 visas were issued to Indian companies which is less than 0.01% of the total emplyment of the US. AllIndian IT professionals have added much more value than could ever be imagined and will continue to do so. It would be a pity if protectionism throws a spanner into the works - what do you think?
Ganesh

China Inspired !

Why China will succeed!

The tale of two couples describes the picture of success that the Indian middle class have been able to paint on the Chinese landscape. Lakshman and Hetal Hemnani who started life managing a small APTECH centre in Pune are now running a successful chain of GANGES Indian restaurants in the capital city of Beijing, ensuring a quality of cuisine and service that would put many fine restaurants in our own country to shame. And two IIM graduates Ashok Sethi and Renu Khurana, who left thriving careers in India to explore the land of Confucius six years ago, are now Chinese in their occupations and even their thinking ‘ Ashok running a thriving market research business and Renu consulting on education and process quality to multinationals as well as local firms.

What is common to this enterprising quartet and indeed to many more young Indian families who have chosen to make China their home in this decade is not their capability and desire to embrace Chinese language and culture in all its diversity but the respect they have imbued for the discipline and processes that characterize Chinese work ethics and way of life. During the last year when I have made over four trips to this exciting country, every experience has left me more convinced that if there is one country that can truly aspire to take on the mantle of global leadership from America, it is not India but China ‘ unless of course we all collectively decide to do something about it!

The two significant characteristics that have built this conviction in me is the Chinese obsession with scale and quality and their ability to learn quickly and not only replicate but surpass the standards set by their own teachers. Every highway in China is twice the size of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway which even today remains an isolated beacon of excellence in the state of Maharashtra and an enchanting audio visual in the small city of Suzhou demonstrates how this small outlying village of Shanghai has been systematically transformed into a successful pilot city that demonstrates Chinese outsourcing capability at its best. A Communist party Secretary and Mayor committed to growing the one billion dollar plus of outsourcing business manifold, the country’s first outsourcing college training young citizens on the finer aspects of domestic and global outsourcing and the availability of outstanding physical and social infrastructure that could attract the best in the world to move to the city. And if just the Yangtze River Delta and its high growth cities of Shanghai Pudong Suzhou Wuxi Hangzhou and Nanjing can achieve so much in so little time, with Beijing and Nanjing in the North and Shenzhen Guangzhou and Fushan in the South setting an equally scorching pace, imagine the pace that will be set if non-coastal regions like Chengdu in the Schezwan province and other large cities and provinces come in to join the party.

For a long time we in India have seen the emergence of Dalian as an isolated example of success through its focus on Japan and Korea but with seventy million ambitious ambitious members of the Communist Party engaged in fierce competition with each other to demonstrate individual capability of their parks, cities and provinces to attract foreign investment, the second key aspect, that of quick learning can see the Chinese eco-system close the gaps exceedingly fast in the post recession years. When we started the APTECH Joint Venture with Beijing University a decade ago, few of us could have realised how successful the APTECH Beida Jadebird ( Beida is the commercial arm of the University ) would become in becoming the dominant computer trainer in the country. With the Wall Street Institute multiplying its reach of English language training and every significant educator from myriad Australian and British Universities to the numero uno Harvard Business School bringing the best of skills to the country, it is only a matter of time till the significant Chinese cities discover the secret sauce to develop the talent pool that has taken India to the top of the totem pole in global IT and Business Services Outsourcing.

Finally one aspect about China that has not changed in the decade that I have been visiting and soaking in their culture is the acute sense of salesmanship which is rivaled only in some respects by the more entrepreneurial salesmen of Crawford Market, Chor Bazaar and Chandni Chowk. Strolling the streets of the bustling Yu Yu Aan street markets with a young Indian friend, we were amused when a street fake watch merchant not only convinced her to buy a fake Rolex for a five hundred rupee note but also offered to give her the whole case of watches if she would marry him and stay on in China. So much for Hindi-Chini bhai bhai!

Watch out for China, folks !

Ganesh