14 January 2009

New Hopes for Outsourcing and Co-Sourcing - Thumbs up

Satyam fiasco has taken unimaginable proposition and sharp reaction is coming from developed countries (people from developed countries) such as US. Given the current economic crunch and the fact that it does not show any signs of recovery in near future, so many people are fearing that they will be out of their jobs in those countries. Many has already lost their jobs. It is very bad situation for those people who want to retire but ended up working few more years as their retirement fund has eroded. Since the recession is much deep rooted, there is fear that there will be few more rounds of layoffs before showing some hopes of recovery. I would like to give my views on global economy and how it is positioned to go to next level by banking on the growth/consumption of developing countries.

With this backdrop, Satyam's melt down has imposed serious implications about the credibility of its Indian peers. The people, who question outsourcing and its effectiveness, wanted to make use of this opportunity to advocate more against outsourcing. Some of them argue that outsourcing does not offer value. However, I would like ask a simple question, "Without any value or advantage, why many jobs are outsourced for more than 20+ years and to continue to outsource or co-source". The companies will have their own strategies for outsourcing. That being said, the emerging markets are not only focused on creating more jobs by outsourcing, they are going to be biggest consumers going forward. As a matter of fact, many, including UN say that the world is tilted towards emerging markets. Refer the article. So when the growth in emerging markets, it is worth investing in the emerging markets.

I strongly believe that the people who are reacting sharply during this downturn and more sharply after Satyam's accident will turn the other way. Once the current unemployment pressure cools down, these voices will be come down. At the same time, the big players of Indian IT should continuously innovate in their business models and to make sure that there is high accountability in the delivery moving towards risk driven or accountability driven business models and output/productivity is predictable and reasonable. They should stop being another shop or backyard to any developed countries but to deliver high values their customers. Indian IT companies should continuously keep their cards open for moving beyond outsourcing to matured partnerships.

Also, all the corporates in developed countries would like to do business in emerging countries where the population is huge as the consumption will be more. When you want to market your products in emerging countries, it makes sense to set up office and employ local talent for operational efficiency (low cost) and high skill (local talent have knowledge of the culture and marketing strategies). From my point of view, Outsourcing and Globalization are two sides of a coin and one cannot exist without the other. As long as outsourcing is stopped (at policy level), the outsourcing is going to continue. However there could be margin pressures (from my viewpoint, this is more a sort of operational challenge) which matured Indian IT will be able to handle in a better way.

More than outsourcing, the need of the hour is ability to absorb and take part in the growth of emerging economies. Surely, the emerging markets have potential to take the global economy to next level provided it is used in proper way. As an Indian and an Engineer from IT industry, I strongly feel that the growth of Indian industry and particularly IT space is promising. You will see more and excessive jobs getting created in India after this economic downturn (which is likely to recover in another six months flat). To sum up,

1. Please do not generalize things unless you see a trend especially if it is bad.
2. When US/European economy recovers, more jobs will be created in US/Europe and then more jobs will be outsourced.
3. The emerging markets are going to lead the next phase of the growth of global economy and this will also create substantial jobs in emerging economies.
4. When more jobs are created, the consumption will shoot up and this will take our planet to prosperity.

Yep Cloud Computing at striking distance

It was Wednesday morning and you are heading for your office to meet an important customer. Your close and long-time-no-meet friend calls you up as you drive your car. You pick up the call, the car senses that you are on a call and it fixes up an upper speed limit until the call is terminated. You start to have a conversion with your friend. Both of you agree to meet the dineer. At dinner, you guys decide to go for a weekend tour with few of your friends. With hundreds of tourist spots, based on your preferences and your friends' preferences, your mobile gives you few destinations with best deals for air travel, hotel accommodation, tourist guides, cabs. You enter the number of people and just touching the mobile screen once to say "ok". Mobile takes care of making all reservations and gets confirmation. Once all the reservations are confirmed, the mobile runs "traveling salesman algorithm" for your entire trip and gives you the itinerary.

Performing all these operation in mobile will be costly and time consuming. So, these complex operations have to be performed in remote places. The mobile just issues the command and will not be interested to know "how the information was processed". In order for the mobile computing be successful, the integration of mobile with cloud is very important. The cloud can be at service provider's network or the mobile can connect to the cloud of another service provider. The mobile-cloud integration is key and will be cornerstone for next mobile revolution. There are lot of developments having in this space. We should be hearing some stunning announcements in near future. Keep a watch on Google.