The recent news item about Democrat senator Charles Schumer calling Infosys a chop shop has sparked off a lively debate and understandably drawn a lot of comments from the Indian IT industry. Clearly, political compulsions and an economy that is taking its time to recover are triggering such statements.
This is ironic from an Indian IT industry stand point though. During its heydays ( mid nineties to mid 2000’s), the word global delivery was merely a euphemism for large and multiple development centers in India, for most companies, including the large ones. Likewise, the proportion of global talent was not very significant. In the last few years however, the scale players especially have gone about globalizing their operations more systematically, hired locals, especially from the US, which continues to be the most attractive market notwithstanding the recession, and begun to behave like a global corporation, albeit slowly.
This episode underscores the need for Indian companies and industry associations to focus more and more on brand building to communicate strongly the value being delivered by the global outsourcing industry.
Comments?
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The deep seated malaise in the perceptions of some of these people cannot be changed it appears, the global benchmarks & excellence of the Indian software Industry notwithstanding.
Vasant, yes one is perception, the other is expedience- and that is why branding and communication in the right forums becomes very important.
Nobody likes any successful person / Country in any field. Forget the comments of the US Senator. As you say ‘focus more and more on brand building to communicate strongly the value being delivered by the global outsourcing industry’ should be taken up.
If so Their /his comments would change.
Congrats on your having written 129 posts on Prayag Blog.
Yes Mr Chary, you are right. Success creates envy and resentment many times, and we as a country/industry have to be smart, anticipate it and counter it.
Its also noticeable that the government did not retort the statement from the senator with the kind of force expected of it. This was borne of the realization that in an election year, this is just the start and one can expect more murky statements in the days to come.
However, the IT industry would do well to have a strategy put in place to counter these statements next time around.