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.Similar Posts:

• The Great Indian Outsourcing Ride: Part 3 (FINAL)
• The Great Indian Outsourcing Ride: Part 2
• Ideas are Free, but They Have a Life Time
• The great Indian outsourcing ride: Part 1
• The U.S and us: The H-1B Debacle

THE UGLY:

The earliest of the employees of these firms were from coveted institutes like IITs, IIMs, IISc  and the like. So there was usually a sense of pride among the IT population that only the best can possibly make it to the IT industry- a feeling that has still not worn off among the regular engineers, years after the truth has collapsed. Companies like Infy, TCS or Wipro would go to the campuses and select just a dozen back then. Things have changed now. The recruitment strategy of these companies is now nicknamed Truckload Recruitment in view of the numbers they recruit. Their motto – Leave no one behindJ. Getting back to the point of damage, these IIT and IISc guys were supposed to be hard at work in some research and development or doing high level analysis that really requires their level of intellect. I still remember that IIT and IIM guys used to leave the country in large numbers as soon as they were done with their graduation to work in high level firms like GE or McKinsey. A lot of them had also started ventures in Silicon Valley and went on to become big names. Slowly these outsourcing Gurus starts stalking these campuses in search of bright minds by making promises like appraisals and onsite opportunities. Many fell for this; little did they know that the job required them to switch off their brains- something that landed them in IITs or IIMs. We still have quite a crowd of these guys although a bit depressed feeling stuck here. Now THAT is what I would call wasted intellect. However, it is also comforting to know that bulk of this crowd have now entered managerial ranks.

The damage to the US economy was no little. Thousands of American computer programmers were getting laid off because their roles were being ‘Bangalored’ – a term to mock outsourcing. The guys at the other end of the world were hardly passionate guys with little or no knowledge of the business ramblings and the importance of their work- a problem that continues even today. There’re hundreds and possibly thousands who would very skillfully do their jobs without the faintest idea of why or when. And now the problem is being compounded with the recession. Already millions have lost their homes and jobs, outsourcing is only going to further their misery.

So what about our own economy? By now, our stock markets are heavily dependent on stocks like Infosys, TCS or Wipro. A rise in Q3 earnings would send the whole market to dizzy heights. A small rumor about a loss or staff downsizing would send the stock market plummeting. So it is only goes beyond proving the fact that we are tightly coupled with the outsourcing biz. In other words, we still need some American masters to pay for our food. We have truly become a global back office. We have very few stocks that hold out on their own and do not move in the direction of IT stocks. Talk about dignity of labor here! Should we be forever dependant on the low level work of some other country? Are we not educated or intelligent enough to create jobs for own selves and our people? It would be truly a matter of national shame if we cannot do so.

CONCLUSION:

Every dog has its day. IT has had its golden years. My personal view is to take the focus to some other sector before IT turns toxic and bleeds the economy of its juice. Indians need to be more balanced in choosing their careers. Herd mentality is NOT the way forward if stability is to be taken into consideration. IT companies will only survive if they convert from a purely services oriented biz to product biz, which at the moment doesn’t seem to be happening. The bottom-line here is that if you’re truly interested and are good at IT, you will survive any storm. On the other hand, if you belong to the majority of us, I would just say that it’s high time we did some introspection and found out what we want to spend the rest of our life doing. The choice is yours!

Also read:

• The Great Indian Outsourcing Ride: Part 1
• The Great Indian Outsourcing Ride: Part 2

Another very interesting article:

The Coming Death of Indian Outsourcing by Sramana Mitra at Forbes.comSimilar Posts:

• The great Indian outsourcing ride: Part 1
• The U.S and us: The H-1B Debacle
• The Great Indian Outsourcing Ride: Part 2
• A comparison of Indian IT companies and California based companies
• Chasing the happily ever after dream… Marriage: Part 5