Today was an interesting day at the NASSCOM HR Summit 2008 in Chennai.

There was a session on HR Leadership: Paradigm shift from process recruiters to business leaders. When the Chairperson of the panel, Mr. Pratik Kumar (EVP HR, Wipro) asked the speakers as what would they like to request from their business leaders, we had some *really cool* answers (read: CEO bashing)!

Nandita Gurjar (VP & Group Head, Infosys) would like to see a recession, so that things cool-off a little bit, giving her the most deserved respite from managing change and pushing growth initiative at the same time - definitely not an easy job by any standards. I understand that she said it on a lighter note, but if you have a serious thought on this issue, it is actually not a bad idea!

Elango R (Chief HR Officer, Mphasis) in his witty style wants CEOs to stop reading books and attending conferences. He feels that there is a new "clone it" idea brought in by the CEO everyday, which makes life really difficult for the guy. I know he does not mean it. But does it really matter. It is not going to change anytime soon.

CEO’s: Are you listening?
It just resonated in my own ears! After all, I am also one of the culprits.

Just wanted to share some light moments (read: CEO bashing).

I found this very interesting quote in someone’s signature whom I met on a business networking website:

"If you want to go fast, travel alone; but if you want to go far, travel together."
- African Proverb

How true - specially for software programming teams, which are so vulnerable due to individualistic goals. As if there is no tomorrow!

Offshore outsourcing - a concept that made IT & India synonmous with each other in the first decade of 21st century is loosing its glamour quotient consistently. It seems that by 2010, hundreds of software companies will run out of steam as they loose their competitiveness in the ever changing industry, since their business model has been worked around cost arbitrage alone.

Some hard facts which makes me feel so:

Increasing wages in India: Salaries are constantly moving skyward. Every year IT companies are forced to raise wages by 20-25% to remain competitive in the job market. Some hot IT destinations in India have become as expensive as Australia and Canada (if not USA and UK) in terms of manpower costs. With advent of offshore facilities of US / Europe based software companies, the trend will continue to move north.

Shortage of skilled manpower: Indian IT industry is facing a major shortage of employable skilled manpower. The education system has not gone through any fundamental improvement to fulfill the ever growing demand of the industry. Large companies are hiring semi-skilled and non-skilled professionals (not really) to fill in the positions that exists in their team. This is continually detoriating the quality and quantity of work that gets done resulting an increase in effective cost of production for the customer. At one point of time or other, this will pinch and will make offshore outsourcing non-competitive.

Appreciating rupee, depreciating dollar: With the economic upswing, the rupee is scaling new heights. On the other hand, due to economic slowdown in sight, US dollar is declining heavily. This is resulting in direct losses of revenue for most offshore outsourcing companies. There has been a 10-14% decline in revenues just because of currency appreciation. This is a net loss to the company since the effort / cost of servicing the client remains the same.

Increasing operational expenses: Cost of doing business is on a rise with zooming real estate prices, increasing fuel prices and towering living expenses. Companies are forced to spend a lot of money in the x-factor to impress prospective employees. All these put together are increasing the operational expenses and overheads for offshore outsourcing companies. In fact inflation is heading towards 10%, which is not making things better.

Companies are adpoting global-sourcing: Large enterprises in USA / Europe which were dependent on offshore outsourcing till date are now aggressively adopting global-sourcing. Many of these companies are directly setting up their software development centers in India (or a competitive location), resulting in a dent in the revenues of offshore outsourcing companies who used to serve them. The trend towards captive offshore development delivery will only increase in years to come.

New destinations: Several new offshore outsourcing destinations are coming up including China, Brazil, Ukrain, Ireland, Poland, South Africa and Russia. Many of them do not rank close to India in terms of the combo-punch of english educated, logically strong, hard working Indian IT worker. But they are making

But as it is said, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. I am sure many companies will evolve their business models, move up the value chain and give customers more than one way to outsource to them!

Afterall the outsourcing story has just begun! 

You ask any student - What do you want to be?

You will get a quick reply -

• Doctor
• Software Engineer
• Singer
• Pilot
• Teacher
• Etc.

Why do different people want to do different things?

Because - they "want" to do that. They have a "desire" to achieve something in the given field. They want to "make a difference" in a given way and want to make a living out of that. Clearly, making money is an important component. But it is not the priority. The attention is on the quality of achievement and how he will come out superior among his peers (we call it competition).

But what we see around in real life is something totally different. That same person when he enters into his professional life, forgets about his wants, desire and the "make a difference" attitude and turns to "make a living out of it" as the only goal. He turns towards mediocre work just to walk through the day. Where is the fire to be "the best" in what he does?

What has gone wrong? What has happened that has turned around the entire goal of life!

If you ask this question to most of the people, they will start playing "pass the blame" game. The person they blame may change from scenario to scenario!

• Someone will blame their employer
  • I don’t get opportunity to perform 
  • I do not get paid enough
• Someone will blame their customers
  • My customer do not give me enough space to be creative
  • My employees are not dedicated).
• Someone will blame their education
  • I could not crack GMAT and hence could not proceed with my career of choice
  • My college degree is useless and it has not prepared me for my job

The reality is - "We have taken a shortcut in our life."

Most people want to get the goodies, but will not like to take the pain. To make themselves happy they invent a new theory! It goes like this –

Innerself: Why do we really work?
Outerself: To earn a living!

Innerself: Is this the only way to earn?
Outerself: No

Innerself: So what are my options?
Outerself: Anything that helps me achieve my ultimate goal. That is, to earn a living!

The problem starts when we answer the first question raised by the "Innerself". When someone is in school, the answer is different and is driven by passion. When the same person steps into real life the answer is driven by immediate need.

So, when a person gets this immediate need to be satisfied, he will change course. He will take a shortcut, which looks very rosy. He trades his dream against his immediate need. It is good or bad - I don’t know. People may have real compulsions or they might have pre-conceived unreal problems. But this is the day they get out to walk on the "most used" path which takes them away from glory and satisfaction.

I sincirely believe that if a person is passionate and he works for his passion - to be the best in what he does - to do it honestly and to stick to his dream - he will be successful in achieving what he originally dreamed. And there is no bigger satisfaction in life compared to achieving this.

So, to be what you "want to be", hold on to your dream and stick to your passion. Of course nothing comes cheap and there will be adversities on the way, but if you do not take the shortcut, life will treat you like a king.

BTW, while you work hard to achieve what you "want to be", your financial goals are well taken care of.

Why? Because you are not wasting your time in thinking about money. It can result in very high level of anxiety. You are focused on your goal and doing the work, which results in money. Thinking does not get you any money! So you earn much more than you expected out of the immediate "shortcut" that you avoided when taking a decision about your career.

May success belong to you and your dreams come true.

Note:

I have been inspired to write this blog post as I see thousands of IT professionals in India slog in day and out running after their dream career. I have met several young IT professionals who have no ambition to achieve something except a good living. They don’t take any pride in what they do. They do "what others want" because they have taken a shortcut.

I was reading somewhere that "India has the youngest population in the world and is poised to take a giant leap …"

But if the young workforce is directionless, then in which direction are we taking the "giant leap". Towards being a mediocre service delivery center for the world? or Towards becoming the largest consumer market in the world?

Let’s think!