Views on the Indian tech industry

One of my friend has shared this story to me .I am sharing with you.



Views on the Indian tech industry:

It's a topic that has been oft debated - that India's tech industry is a lot like the Chinese manufacturing phenomenon - Low cost, reasonable quality, minimal innovation. I was an employee of a huge IT company in India (what the heck, it was TCS) and have, in the two years in their employ, developed certain opinions and concerns about the direction of India's IT revolution.

Here's how Indian IT companies operate (Infy, TCS, Wipro and the second string such as Mastek, Satyam, Patni etc). Hire engineers in bulk, never mind that they are not computer scientists or electrical engineers - if they can write a few lines of code in C/C++ and are academically decent, they're hired . After all, they don't need brilliant engineers - just people who will do as they are told and reasonably intelligent enough to get the client's work done, and bullshit their way out of it if they don't. They'll rarely make CAD software for Electrical engineering or mechanical engineering. Instead they will develop "end to end solutions" for banking, finance, inventory management, website development, etc. By develop I mean code, not design - there is a huge difference between the two, something which I will touch upon shortly. One important thing to note is that the HR in most IT companies don't give a damn about individual interests. They will put you wherever they need someone to slog for them. I've had one HR person tell me that they will put me in a project where they get maximum money, regardless if I am interested or not. And they wonder why so many people leave!!!

What is the nature of the work? At least 70% of the international projects in most Indian IT companies is maintenance - i.e someone else has already developed an application. All you need to do is add more features/change behavior as per client's request. Then there's production support, which is worse. It is almost call-center work - ensure that the application runs normally and if it fails, get it up and running ASAP. Take calls from the client, update on the status. In a sense, like a car mechanic - I didn't get an engineering degree to be a car mechanic - I got it to design the car! Finally, if you are lucky you get development - write code. But then, writing code is easy - it is like manufacturing a car. What is not, is designing a system that works efficiently. Typically, foreign clients get the design done by the likes of Accenture, IBM, etc. The designs are then sent to Desi companies, who actually do the coding at a cost much cheaper than IBM or accenture. Thus, all we do is donkey work. It is not technology - it is programming. Technology is a new idea, paradigm or design - programming is implementing that design. Thus, most of the people in IT waste their engineering degrees, doing mundane programming, until they are made project managers - after which they spend their lives approving time sheets, conducting appraisals and sucking up to the client . Wait a second - shouldn't an experienced IT professional be doing advanced stuff and leave the bullshitting to MBAs?

Why is it so hard for Desi companies to do design? They've not tried hard enough (yet) to get into this space. They just don't have the competence to get the job done. Desi companies are amazing at procedure oriented projects - if there is a procedure in place telling us what to do, we can do it. They don't have the experience (and therefore the brand equity) to attract IT consulting projects. Consulting is largely a reputation driven business. In order to build such a reputation, desi companies need to hire high-flying consultants - they dont come cheap. Even after all this, there is no guarantee of results! (Lately, Infy is trying to get into this space, I'm told, so good luck to them. I dont think TCS is though :-)) How many software products come out of Indian cos? IFlex is the only company to have a product successful worldwide. Making products is expensive and again, there is no guarantee of success - why risk it when services give me an assured income?

Why do we need to get into high end IT - consulting and products? Simply because the algorithm of low cost, low margin services will run it's course in the future. As pay scales rise in India and the rupee appreciating wrt the dollar, margins become more and more slim. In time, India may not be as competitive as say Brasil or Russia - the American cos will take their projects out there! U can see trends in the manufacturing sector - earlier Taiwan was the manufacturing base for American cos, then South Korea and then these days, China For too long have we been stuck in the procedure oriented IT services. It is time to invest in consulting and products, and take Indian IT to the next level, or else I fear we will remain stuck in this low end nonsense.
. Indian companies thus have 2 choices - identify and set shop in countries where the low cost, low margin algorithm can be applied (TCS seems to be taking this route) or enter into high end IT, which is independent of geography (Which Infy is trying). I believe the latter is the better route - it is a high margin business and reasonably high tech. What is even better, is coming up with technology - like Java, efficient databases, advanced operating systems (Like Sun, Oracle or Microsoft). That is real tech. It's not that we can't do it. It's just that we don't want to risk it. But, nothing venture, nothing have! Desi companies’ don't even do proper R&D!


Finally, a true story. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) was huge in the chip manufacturing industry, making almost 60% profit. They could have got into chip design, and potentially, designed low cost chips. However, design is a risky business - what if the chip bombs? TSMC chose to stick to it's core competence - fabrication. In time, TSMC's profits have declined to 20% or so... they're still number one, but don’t make as much money as they used to... Are we learning yet?

But dost logo Recession ke time pe sab karna padega .

Cricket is Obsession

Cricket is obsession in India. If somebody has to play some game in India with few people then the first choice would be cricket. These days we are playing cricket every Saturday. It is a initiative taken by few of the members of the JAVA team. Our office is situated in Faridabad and lots of employees reside near by. There are very good residential places near by our office and due to hectic office schedule sometime people prefer to stay nearby. I was in Delhi and shifted in Faridabad few months back. You have crunch of space in Delhi and all colonies are short of space. Residential places in FBD have ample space to move. We have a big playground in sector-31.Cold was on its decline when we decided to burn our calories in playground. It was a nice move.Chetan, Pankaj, Vikas were initiator. They asked me and I said an obvious yes to them. I play TT whenever I get a chance. But for Cricket we were not having any time. I have won few championships in TT but for me Cricket is my passion. We are so much into cricket that we just need a trigger and rest everybody can see. We tend to involve into cricket more than our religion. When it comes to spirituality and religion we follow our heart for some social belongings. But our X-factor comes into play when we are into the skin of this English game. Cricket is a game of passion abided by rules.

We play on few Saturdays by dividing team among ourselves. Initially only member of JAVA team were willing to play as they have played it on few occasions earlier. Later few members of testing team got involved and then players of Microsoft team also joined us. We decided to play a so called official match between MS and JAVA teams. Though Java team members were very few in numbers. Hardly 6-7 people were in JAVA team. Sunil and I were included in JAVA team. Sunil Bainsla was much excited and actually he is very emotional about the game. He was busy in framing mails for inviting MS team to play a match. He was thinking 24*7 about the game. Sometime we have to stop him discussing about cricket. He is crazy stuff. Finally he gave me a call on Saturday morning at 6 AM for reaching in playground. Though it was painful but it was our passion which drawn me to the field. We played two matches against MS team and won both of them.Chetan and Bhati bowled very well.Pankaj got few wickets. In first match Vikas Goyat didn’t bowled as per expectations.But he bowled well in second match. We borrowed two players from MS team. I played a satisfactory knock. I have a unique paradox that I go for opening and take the strike. If my team doesn’t provide me this facility they cannot extract 100% from my batting. It is psychological more than technical. I feel comfortable going for opening. MS team fought hard in first game but surrenders in second.Anyways my team won both matches. In second weekend MS and JAVA both won one match each. I have learnt few new words Sunil Bhati thet movement can be alternative of start. He was fond of the phrase “Thoda movement rakh” when he was bowling.

There were some cheating and unfair play.But Itna chalta hai . Kunal bagged limelight by his fielding standards. He was actually fielding for us.

The crowd was expecting some cheerleaders. One of the MS bowler Rakesh alias RAKA

was taking long run up to frighten the batsman.But,it was a flop show. Though he manage to take some wickets. But he did not gained reputation among batsmans.

Overall it was a nice experience for me to play for JAVA team. I hope to regain my form and play a good knock for winning cause of my team.