Willkommen in Indien

There was a team of students visiting India last week from the University of HNU. This was as a part of their cross-culture learning expedition. While they were here in Bangalore, I took an opportunity to introduce them to the Indian IT Industry.

While I was on with my presentation and the visit to Wipro's Electronic City Campus, I realized that there's a huge chasm between the reality of the Indian IT industry and the perspective that people outside India carry. Especially those who have not interfaced with it directly.

I am talking about 'Managers of Tomorrow'. Through the informal interaction I had, I gathered that their view about outsourcing was that of 'Non-Core' - 'Back-Office' operations. Those tasks which are of least value add to the firm and hence bargained with ecomonies of scale.

While they went through the presentation and saw a couple of Innovation Labs at Wipro as well learnt about the Talent Transformation investment done over here. Am sure the sincerety remains the same when it comes to Infosys or TCS. Each of these IT companies have moved very clearly from managing the low-end tasks to becoming strategic partners for some of the largest firms on earth. It's no more the cost arbitrage that that drives business to India, it's the expertise that these firms offer. They are all moving from CHEAPER --> BETTER --> MORE.

So here's the remark from one of the students towards the end of the day - 'Our view about the Indian IT Industry underwent a sea change speaking to you and seeing things in action'.

What better a gift to India!