Dream IT!

Dreaming about IT had been the buzz in India for the last two decades. India makes people think it as Indian Technology rather than Information Technology. The growth story throughout the world for IT always was linked to India or Indians. Let me respect the fact that, the real fire took off in US in 1960s. Indians always made it big in all parts of the world for everything linked with science and technology. All of you know the education in Asia and especially India from 20th century focussed on creating industry ready people.The workforce creation which were the hybrid versions of the seeds once sown by the imperialist countries on their colonies still going strong. The brain rich geniouses from mammoth universities of India migrated to Western world considering the riches they could enrich their lives with, rather than staying loyal to a small developing nation. You all would take this as a case study for brain drain, but I would consider it as a test dose of Indian brains to the Western world. These are the guys who really played a pivotal role in the growth of India. These sample sachets in human form did perform past anybody's imagination. This might have made people think what a group of them can do for us which started it all.

My generation was never brought up to fit into IT world since it was a novice subject back then. The world now sees India as an IT hub. India is doing top class business in IT & IT-ES services bringing back the wealth to India in the form of dollars which was once looted in the form of gems. A job well done to all those big IT companies of ours. You could find that at least 4 out of 10 new IT companies coming up in North America has something or other to do with an Indian. Mostly started by Indians, sold to others by Indians, or employs Indians, or OUTSOURCES their work to India. What is outsourcing? Outsourcing just means to obtain services from another person or an organization often used with the term subcontract. In plain words it just as simple as getting your job done by somebody else for a cheaper expense. Imagine you have a job and you don't want to do it but still want the money. Maybe you lack expertise or brains or interest. But you still want the money. So how can you achieve that? There comes outsourcing to help you out. You find someone who can do the same job for cheaper amount for you and you just take the difference to your wallet which would still be thick. Is this commission business? Yeah, to an extent it is. But why to India? You can find an IT company in almost every street of Bangalore and most other parts of India. Again, why is it coming to India?

Most of my IT employed friends would be clear on the Onsite-Offshore model by now. So how does that work? For my non IT readers, let me put it in simple words. You place one guy(or many based on profit) to face the customer, get to know the requirements firsthand. While you have a whole team waiting out there in offshore in India to take details from this guy facing customer. This offshore(local) team in India does the job for the customer abroad while they are seated here in India. So is this model effective? It might be otherwise maynot survive so long. Or it would have survived due to the absence of any other models, which itself could be a good subject to explore if it tickles your interests. For a customer this model works, because they get the benefit of Indian brains sitting in India building it for them taking Indian Rupees while they pay in dollars. The communication is so easy due to this global medium called English and almighty Internet. Again it works out cheaper for them since it is outsourced! I don't want to explain how IT works and help you in starting a business. If we rethink this again, did I say Indian brains working taking Indian Rupees? Yeah, I did. This is what it is all about. The IT companies charge the customer based on their profit margin, business model, business strategy and much more and ofcourse considering what they need to pay for their team in Indian salaries which is cheaper than employing someone abroad due to the cost of living in India. But is that true?

You really think the cost of living is low in India? This is the real problem which is going to hit all sectors but for now lets focus on IT. It will bang hard on IT doors maybe faster than it once knocked on Indian doors. The cost of living is going higher and higher. This makes people in India expect more from every company. There are a lot of companies who pays that based on their profit margin and everybody on earth can't work for that company. This fact forces expectation to rise to those verticals where there are really no limits. Imagine that the business is still the same, customer is still the same, outsourced Indian/foreign company is still the same. The change is only with the employee or the workforce who has a bigger expectation now. This goes to an economic condition where demand is more but supply is less. Companies want people but there are very few grooming out every year to fit into their monetary bracket due to the industry ready education model which would forget IT if the workforce considers better profit elsewhere. Finally different companies succumb to this pressure where if they don't provide service due to the absence of workforce, somebody else will. This makes them start paying employees more. This is a kind of business model that can go crazy and bust in no time due to competition. Now the situation is employees happy, companies losing profit(still manageable), clients happy and business goes on. I think this is all gonna get to a limit where employees not happy(thumb rule: man is never happy with what he has), companies not happy, clients/customers unhappy and business fails. So does that mean IT is going to end forever?

That never means IT business will stop, it just means time for other countries who can provide cheaper labour due to their living conditions and good command on English would take up India's role in IT. Does that mean it was not really Indian brains that made the difference. Yes, it might have been to start off but not anymore. If not complete but at least, a big chunk of it will go out of India due to this. Can expect some Indians to go to that part of the world to find a living too but never to reduce their rising expectations which had already hit the roof. Again it goes on, it really is a vicious cycle and we are just in the middle of the first cycle. And again it goes on...

The advent of IT in India can be viewed as modern day colonialism which we had welcome with both hands. This emergence of MNC's in India had brought us jobs and money but that was the same thing industrialism gave us. Our forefathers fought for us to get freedom and now we are trying to boast of being a MNC colony.