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The Rise of the ConSULTANS - by Kamal Misra * Part - II
Starting with the vision of Dr F C Kohli, in the form of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in the early 60s, the IT sector was gradually bracing itself for a global domination in the time to come. Then, the objective was primarily to cater to the back-end needs of the global giants. A few Indian IT companies like TCS, CMC, Patni etc, were involved in the low-end jobs like writing and debugging code in the then available computing platform. Maintenance of legacy systems, Production support etc were some of the other services rendered by these companies The global companies included the likes of GE, HP, Walmart etc who were more than happy to outsource work to India owing to the latter's cost compliance and huge knowledge base. The world had still not woken up to the prowess of this nascent sector, which was wrapped in the shrouds of obscurity. India provided skilled manpower and boasted of an abundant pool of English-speaking population, especially in the southern part of the country. The MNCs were able to reduce cost by anywhere up to 40%, by having their work outsourced to a low wage country like India (Source: Nasscom). This, in turn increased their profits, allowing them to invest in growth. The capital invested created new jobs in the economy and the increased profits helped the company survive. Hence, the seeds of the service sector had been sown with a view to bridge the digital divide between India and the West. * Contributed by: - |
