Our Software Industry

I am a software engineer, working in one of the leading tech companies of India, with a turnover of over a billion dollars annually........

With these facts stated, let me quickly mention the incident that made me wanna pen a.k.a type this down; a conversation with a friend's father, an engineer himself, now enjoying his retirement days...He said, " Son, our software industry is one of the great success stories today, just like Amul was in my days!"

I nodded my head in agreement at the time; US$ 15 Billion exports, among the largest employers, who wouldn't agree? But later I couldn't help but think if it wasn't just another case of falling short of potential, something that is so routine in this country.

Lets go back to the figures, TCS the largest Indian software company was founded in 1968, today its a US$ 2 Billion+ company with a total head count of about 40,000. Microsoft was founded in 1975, today its a US$ 36 Billion+ company with a total head count of about 57,000.

Why such unbalanced growth? Here in lies the truth: our companies suffer from myopic vision, no desire to innovate or invest in R & D, all factors that make a company a world beater. There is nothing revolutionary in what we have achieved. From plain and simple body shopping in the 80s we have used the improved technology (internet and bigger bandwidth for example) to move work back to India (further reducing costs), a methodology known as the Global Delivery Model.

Amazing feats can be accomplished by a motivated work force of forty thousand. Instead most of us end up performing quotidian activities of the most mundane kind, soon to be left with little creative urge or a desire to innovate.

Yes indeed our software industry has come a long way; but if these issues are not addressed, if innovation doesn't become a buzzword, if creativity and imagination are not encouraged, we will soon reach a stage where growth will stagnate and there will be little left to cheer about.

Kabooommm....

A new blog added to the endless list....