I was digging for a file in my mail folder and I hit upon this uncompleted article that I wrote. I get into this funny mode once in a while where I think upon something really big and even go as far as putting it into words. This is one of them. It always gives me a smile when I look back at it.
Couple of years back, I had this urge to write a book and I thought it was a great idea. It was about outsourcing jobs to India. At that time, I had strong feelings about it and I still do, in terms of the success in Indian outsourcing companies. Since I didnt write the book..:( and the article is open-ended except the title which kind of has a negative connotation (I chose that title to stimulate interest and attention) about outsourcing, I thought that it would make up for one of those blogs where everybody can throw darts at.
Here it starts....
HYPE ABOUT INDIA !
It is human's nature to listen and hear things about the general phenomena that happens around us and formulate a quantifiable structure to a topic and believe it. Recently, the phenomenon of outsourcing has attracted or rather frustrated the minds of a lot of white collar employees. I couldnt stop but notice the plethora of perceptions about India and Indians floating around in every major meetings, forums and what not. Having brought up in India and having worked there for a couple of years, a lot of my Indians friends and I had mixed feelings and concerns about a whole range of topics that are being talked about in media, which are partly true, but as a whole, a little misleading. I have attempted to analyse the essence of what is happening in Indian Startups and established firms and present the snapshot of what is really going on in India. Is Outsourcing Real? and Who will Survive? I also discuss the potential ups and downs of the Indian economical structure as a whole and present the impact of IT firms in India. This book is intended for a wide variety of audience ranging from budding entrepreneurs who want to start a company in India, VCs who are eyeing around to choose the next best company to fund with, people employed in US to understand the impact of outsourcing and how they should position themselves and to the business community in general who want to educate themselves with more real facts than the generally presented numbers.
Chapters
1) History of Indian Tech Companies in pre-90s
2) US Migration Portfolio
3) Y2K, WWW and beyond
4) Optimality Equation
5) Work Culture in India and US
6) Services to Startups?
7) Success & Failure Stories -- Up, Close and Personal
8) Case for a good outsourcing/offshoring model
9) Fear of Jobs..Who shouldnt be concerned..
10) Planning for the next big wave
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Hype about India !
Posted by Suresh Sankaralingam at 4:16 PM
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5 comments:
Certainly would've been a good hit if it was finished an published few years back (right about the time you thought about it)
I am sure you have tons of ideas. Start writing your next idea into book now.
Critic: Covers too many topics for one book I think.
Mindframes,
A cool concept and well organised for someone starting to write a book, as usual.I think your brain always works overtime.I think you can still make a few changes and write the book as outsourcing is still going on and Startups are still coming up in India.
What I think...
The ideal book at this time would be the factors that could cause a shift in outsourcing from India to other countries or how India could improve their strategy to sustain their competitive advantage.
Many Indian companies continue to tout low-cost as the chief advantage. I think that's got to change to high-value - that is quality and value-added services.
People have started thinking about Total Cost of Outsourcing (and there are many hidden costs. With the rising wages in India, pretty soon the low-cost isn't going to be that low.
Many Indian companies realize this, many others don't. Those who don't may not survive.
No doubt, outsourcing is a very interesting topic.
That reminds me. I wrote a class paper on what to do to avoid outsourcing and the conclusion (including American professor's) was that it was inevitable. American workers should find their new niche areas as they always did in the past.
My original idea about the blog was to stir conversations about outsourcing and not about the book idea that I had. I was surprised to see all the positive comments and thought I will savor it for some time..:)
My take on outsourcing jobs to India is that, India has to find market niches where they excel. Manufacturing is dominated by most asian countries like China, Malaysia, Taiwan etc., Services (especially IT) is where I see India's dominance. But, that dominance is purely driven by low cost engineering work force and the ability of Indians to communicate in English. Looking at Chinese Govt. and their aggressiveness over policy making, I am sure, in the next 5-10 yrs, they will do better than India, if India keeps going in the same pace as now. I feel that top indian companies dont take the risk to compete in product based companies. Unless they take risks, they cant be a market leader in any particular segment.
That said, a lot of startups here in bay area are now forced to have an operation in India to get their VC funding. So, the knowledge transfer of taking risks and creating new products is slowly seeping in. Hopefully, it will get better over time.
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