In the first post of this series, we had a look at the prosperity IT outsourcing had brought to the country. How it changed an entire generation of people, upgraded their living etc. But has this done only good? Has the wave ensured only prosperity without any other side effects? Read on!
THE BAD
Whenever I brag about what I do, people tend to ask me ‘Why? The job pays you well, you even get an opportunity to go ‘onsite’, then why are you always looking to find a ‘better’ job?’ My answer to that question would be multi pronged. Firstly, I plan to do an MBA abroad, so a good profile or a profile well beyond a conventional Indian outsourcing role is a pre-requisite. I say that with full confidence because it is based on my hard research. I cannot be wrong here. Well, they even seem to have a counter point to this one as well. They suggest that ‘Your Company gives you wonderful work experience. Work for 2 years and with that work experience you can apply anywhere and get selected.’ Wow! If only life was so simple.
Don’t they get it? After a while or possibly even now, there’re armies of Indian IT outsourcing guys applying to Ivy League universities based on this belief, only in vain. Don’t they get it? Are they so dumb that they cannot calculate the odds of them getting selected when thousands apply for the same program with almost all of the American and other foreign applications being better than theirs? Even if they were declared dumb, I would find no fault with them. After all, the job jus requires one to use CTRL, C and V in a very lavish manner. You could simply forget your brains at home and still work for these guys. The only reason why these companies still try to recruit (read TRAP) engineers is because the supply for engineers far exceeds the demand but the employability factor still remains at shockingly low levels probably in the range of 30-50%. The second reason is that the US H1B visa requires applicants to have a minimum 4 year regular education. So there they were- the engineers, the heroes of the Indian IT wave. All they want are appraisals and onsite opportunities. How shallow can such a well educated group get? There’s hardly a sense in the modern engineer to do anything meaningful or worthwhile.
But like it or not, the best of the engineers still are picked by the core companies. The general belief that IT still gets the crème la crème of engineers no longer holds good. Neither is there anything outstanding about the money they throw in. It’s good but you can get better paying jobs as a proper engineer itself. A marketing executive with an engineering firm gets almost the double pay as would a software engineer. The growth is also stunted now. Due to the large crowd, climbing the ladder just got a lot tougher; so have getting onsite opportunities. Only a select few can even dream of having their visas processed. Please remember, this is firsthand report. You could disagree with me, but if you still paint a rosy picture, I would be forced to doubt your sanity. And definitely the Army’s excuse that they lose the best recruits to IT falls flat on its face.
To end this post, I would say people like Azim Premji and Narayana Murthy have done a very intelliegent job. They did capitalize on the wave, made money and retire. Both the kids (of Narayana Murthy) studied in the US and have disclosed in an interview that they won’t be working at Infosys or India for that matter. Very intelligent choice, I would say. I guess it runs in the family, NRN himself was an IIT graduate I think. He has now left a legacy of having very unsure employees with very little professional future (beyond outsourcing).
To be continued…
I agree to ur point… coz there are many people or students in engineering field both in IT and CS want to disclose this secret behind the outsourcing… Till now the society thinks tht getting into infosys and wipro means secure everything in life (and also the onsite program )…. Tht must be changed… So u done a excellent job through tis portal, so hope better parts of this posts all the best Kenney go ahead ….
Comment by Milin Paul — February 3, 2009 @ 9:20 am
The author is “The Nomad”, but yes, kudos to kenney for bringing out such solid voices out here.
Comment by Domestic Avalanche — February 3, 2009 @ 9:29 pm
A comparison of Indian IT companies and California based companies:
Silicon Valley companies are based on ‘know what.’ They know the market, they know the technology and they know what products to make to earn money.
Indian IT companies are based on ‘know how.’ They do the software coding for other companies that have the ‘know what.’ If you tell them what to do, they know how and will do it for you.
Silicon Valley companies invest huge sums of money on R&D. They generate new ideas and are constantly developing new ways of doing things.
Indian IT companies have nothing called R&D. They do not generate any new ideas.
A typical Silicon Valley engineer is a specialist in a particular technology, like inkjet printing or virus detection. He spends all his life working in this technology area.
A typical Indian IT engineer is a specialist in a few languages. He is not concerned about the technology that he is working on and is willing to develop any software with the languages that he knows.
A typical Silicon Valley engineer’s education and work experience all relate to a technology. When he changes jobs, he changes to another company working on the same technology.
A typical Indian IT engineer’s work experience does not teach him any technology. He may be a mechanical engineer currently working for three months on banking software, and then the next three months on shoe retailing software.
Silicon Valley is all about the excitement of creating things out of nothing. Companies like HP actually started in the garages of their founders.
Indian IT does not know the meaning of creativity. Some companies are started by people who quit other companies and take some of the parent firm’s software development contracts with them.
Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs bet on people, ideas and inventions.
Indian IT’s entrepreneurs bet on certainties. They start a firm after getting software development contracts.
Silicon Valley’s firms are about technology management.
Indian IT’s firms are about man management.
Comment by Ansil — February 4, 2009 @ 5:39 pm
@ansil
That was a great comment and I am making a post from this.
Comment by Kenney Jacob — February 4, 2009 @ 5:51 pm
Thats an awesome ‘post’ Ansil.
Thanks to Milin and Domestic Avalanche for their support.
Comment by The Nomad — February 4, 2009 @ 9:41 pm
Ansil its an awsome post…. superb one.
Comment by Milin Paul — February 5, 2009 @ 8:01 am
@ Kenney
here is some more of thoughts for your new post
We have the best of the Indian engineers leading at NASA, Microsoft, Sun and a whole bunch.But I am still waiting for ONE “global” IT product that has a “Made in India” tag on it. Do we lack the resources to build independent IT solutions on our own capabilities? I don’t think so. Do we lack the sales, marketing or support base to sell our products world-wide? I don’t think so. Then what is it that stands between us and our entrepreneur self.I think, as professionals, and to some extent as individuals, we lack “courage” do go out there and do our own thing. This is just my personal opinion. At the grass root level, a vast majority of the IT workforce of the most progressive economy in the present time, lacks that risk taking ability. We are content to stay inside the so called “comfort zone” for some reason. But we forget, opportunities stem from out-of-the-box. Risks, with mitigation, is a critical growth component in today’s competitive global market.
Comment by Ansil — February 5, 2009 @ 1:34 pm
@Ansil,
You are bang on point!
Most of the country’s youth just look for quick money, with education taking the back seat. Look at the situation now…If you’re a comerce or other science grad, you would take to BPOs or call centres of the like or if you’re an engineering grad, its IT outsourcing, a job only marginally better than what they do at call centres and BPOs… There are very few, more appropriately a drop in the ocean who even bother or put in effort to get something else… In that case, Kenney, hats off to you, you do stand outta the crowd…
I feel the current generation projected by the media as ‘upwardly mobile, urban and rich’ youth just lack one thing- FORESIGHT!!
Comment by The Nomad — February 5, 2009 @ 8:27 pm
ONE “global” IT product that has a “Made in India” …
I think FlexCube from I-Flex (which is now owned by Oracle) and Finacle from Infosys are world’s top 2 e-banking products, totally made in India.
Comment by Cijo Thomas — June 21, 2009 @ 9:33 am
absolutly right beyond outsourcing, the employees have a limited knowledge and that comes from a lot of factors other than their current profile. Have you noticed how many companies take in graduates from electricals, mechanical and other streams and have little aptitude with computers itself?
Comment by Marketing ROI — July 21, 2009 @ 2:26 pm