A Need to Think Beyond Serving

Shubham Nath
MBA 2006

Avant Garde Nov 2004

?Size Matters?- Indeed it does! Being the seventh largest country of the world, housing the largest population and as the proud executer of the largest democracy- India enjoys the liberty of parenting its neighbors of the Indian subcontinent. The evidence can be seen at the Indo-Nepal border where the poor ?chinks? of the rural Himalayas cross over into the arms of parent India. As they flood all over Bihar and Bengal in search of employment as dhaba waiters or domestic helpers, I am struck of the Indian software Industry!
No matter how much the Indian economy boasts of a rising GDP and a booming IT sector, the truth is that the IT industry only confirms the poor status of the Indian economy. We sympathize with the Nepali kanchas when ironically we should be sympathizing with our software industry, which in spite of being so talented is willing to be exploited by the west at throw away prices. We pity the young kancha for cleaning up the left overs of what others have eaten; when actually we should be pitying our very own software industry which is rendering services and solutions to the innovations of the west while the west further innovates. And business conglomerates like TATAs only further this point when their most successful subsidiary TCS talks about ?industries we serve? and ?services we offer? on their official website, and though a ?products? category does feature, a click on it only justifies an attempt of face saving with products that TCS might have innovated ages ago and may well be obsolete today.
The government, I would say does have a role to play in the Indian entrepreneur?s obsession for the services sector. For a very long time the taxation policy didn?t include the services sector and that is what encouraged players both big and small to leap onto the government?s concession. However, the later amendment in the taxation policy proves our hypothesis of ?government?s role in instigating entrepreneurs towards the serving? wrong, because in spite of taxes the software industry still chose to serve.
As the kancha moves from dhaba to dhaba asking for work, I hear the echoes of the software companies in the global market, ?someone please give us work?. It?s a shame that in a nation with an intellectual capital as high as India, the industry, which should ideally have been at the helm of innovation, is actually moving from door to door selling its worth.
So is it the ?size? of the industry in the west, which is to be blamed for this nomadic exhibition of the software industry?
If that is what is attracting the Indian software players then we are at the helm of creating a vicious circle-where the western players through their innovation and Indian services bloat out of proportion and the Indian industry is reduced to a mere servant.
We can?t demean ourselves to mere servants!
The solution to this, thus, lies in a complete shift of paradigm that Indian entrepreneurs presently exhibit. There has to be a shift from the urge to provide services to creating products. Everybody appreciates the deskjet and laserjet of HP but no user ever thinks about the hundreds of Indian engineers who troubleshoot problems that HP faces in maintaining these products in the market working in world famous Indian IT companies. The reason is simple: you have to do something tangible to be recognized. The Indian software industry is like the tutor who although prepares the student for competition gets no recognition for the success of the student, its rather the course instructor who gets it all even though he walks out of the class at the end of the lecture bothering least about the reception of his instructions by the student.
As we exercise this shift in paradigm our greatest weapon shall be the realization off our ?self worth?. We indeed have to take advantage of the fact that in this world where the US is amongst the biggest innovators, people like bill Gates still bow to the IITs.
The Indian software industry has to stop behaving like the needy prostitute who mistakenly emphasizes her poverty and hence gets exploited. The realization must come that the prostitute who exercises the price of her womanhood is the one who dictates the price of her worth. She has to be shrewd enough to take advantage of the libido of the male community and not succumb to their strength. Yes, it is the cadre of the great engineers and managers who have to realize that the kind of education system that exists in India is indeed the best and that the world needs the best more than the best need the world.
?So all the software giants, stop being sissy, realize your worth, ?create? so that the world can see?defy all laws that say ?size matters!??