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AIMS'05: IT Thought Leaders Share their Vision at IIM K Mr. Sriniketh Raman Chakravarthi, Senior Manager, Corporate Development, Cognizant, was the next person to take the stage with an evocative discussion about the global outsourcing landscape and the evolution of IT services. He remarked that a variety of enablers and environmental factors are now falling in place to allow Indian companies to be successful in the product arena too, and not services alone. The post-lunch session was taken by Mr. K. Ganesh, non-Executive Chairman of Marketics, founder of CustomerAsset (now aquired by ICICI Ventures and rechristened ICICI OneSource) and IT&T (now part of iGate), who shared from his wealth of entrepreneurial experience. He talked about how innovation in a dynamic field like information technology was inevitably disruptive and how even big-names like e-bay were facing downturns because of the ruthless pace in which newer business that offer more for less keep coming up. He took IT&T's story as a case study, using it to highlight how the rapid evolution of technology requires the use of different business strategies. Col. K. P. M. Das, VP, Mobile Computing Products Group, Encore Technologies then discussed mobile computing appliances from an Indian market perspective, mentioning critical factors like local language interfaces and physical ruggedness. He walked the gathering through an array of his company's innovative, competitively-priced products, like the Simputer and SATHI, and mentioned how each product could be tailor made to suit a wide variety of applications. The final speaker of the day was Mr. Anjani Mandal, Executive VP, Financial Services Division, Headstrong India. He discussed how globally successful niche consultancies like Headstrong recruit top talent with impeccable analytic and creative skills, and enable them to be 'intrepreneurs' in various units of the company. This was the way they bridged the gap between technical expertise and business strategy. The second day's session began with Ms. Aruna Jayanthi, VP & Head of Outsourcing, Capgemini who shared the company's experiences as it started services in India. She discussed the challenges faced by any company running outsourcing operations in India, from the high economic risk involved due to inflation and currency fluctuations to the high attrition rate in India. She expressed concern over the lack of quality in the middle management level in India's otherwise excellent workforce. Contributed by - |
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