Indian IT Industry - beginning of an end or not?

For the last few month, a single day has not gone past, where we didn’t see a news, blog or a story on the crisis and future of Indian IT industry in the face of new transformative and disruptive technologies of Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics. To add to the woes, President Trump has come down hard on the H1B visas (the backbone of Onshore-Offshore service model of Indian IT industry) and Brexit has added to the uncertainty in the UK market.

The common theme around these news stories is job loss, local hiring, salary cuts and restructuring especially around middle management / managerial positions.

Let's look at each factor and see the impact:

Job Loss: I don’t believe there will be a net job loss in the industry; but yes job shift, skill realignment and retraining may be required for the current lot.

Even with the emergence of new technologies, products and platforms around AI, Automation and Robotics, the IT industry will still need engineers for development and support of the new solutions. IT teams will still be required for Project Management, Application Development, Testing and Support. A lot of new jobs are going to be created in areas like AI, Internet of Things (IoT), cyber security, cloud, Big Data, machine learning, etc. In fact, I see a lot of work coming around the way of IT sector when the organisation world over start to incorporate the new technologies and start migrating from old platforms to new ones.

The current hyperbole I see today is akin to what was observed when the computers were introduced in India. There was a similar sound about people getting jobless, and a single computer doing the work of multiple persons. Although computers can do much more work than humans but instead of a net job loss, on the contrary, it led to the creation of global scale IT industry in India.

Local Hiring: If we historically look at any global industry, we will notice that eventually the localisation of the products, services and workforce do happen over time. Look at any global company in India right now, it would have probably started with its global product line in India but would have eventually started a local production and servicing, thus having a local workforce. This is something similar happening to Indian IT industry. As it grows and have more revenues in local markets, it will have to hire more local resources. Its just that this natural process is hyped and stressed upon due to recent voices of protectionism and nationalism. “Buy American, Hire American”, “Make in India” - does these slogans ring a bell?

Salary Cuts and Restructuring: Also, some of the news stories have focused on salary cuts being offered to mid management executives in order to keep their jobs. Well this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone from the IT industry. The managerial positions, over the time, has become less productive, with low or no value addition and increasingly redundant.

The reason is two folds. Firstly, with the products and technologies increasingly becoming more configurable and user friendly, and hence require less IT resources to implement and configure.  And secondly, due to new implementation methodologies like agile, which requires small, efficient and agile teams. These two factors have made positions like Project Managers increasingly redundant. Resources at these positions neither do requirement gathering, nor any testing or consultancy; and mostly do resource planning and reporting which could be done by various tools.

This was eventually going to happen but the current jolt to the industry has awaken it to look at all corners to identify redundancies and save cost and managerial roles are one of such candidates.

But having said that, there are fundamental problems with Indian IT industry as a whole. How many products that the Indian IT has created in last 20 years? Where does it stand on the pioneering new technologies? Indian IT industry has always been way behind the curve on innovation and strategic thinking.

Indian IT has always worked around and on the products and technologies that are created in the west and has built armies of IT engineers to do development, testing, and support for these. Being purely service oriented, the growth of IT industry has always been dependent on number of people it can put on the above stated roles and bill it to their customers. To describe this model to my friends inside and outside of IT industry, I use this analogy:

Every IT worker is like a taxi with a meter on it. And the idea is to get the meter running. And how do you do that? you carry passengers. As over the years the number of passengers increased, more taxis were put in place to fare the passengers. The model seemed to have worked so far and revenue depended on the number of taxis running; more the taxis, more the revenue. Now a new driver-less train has come to the market, which can carry more people and doesn’t need a driver. What happens to the existing fleet of drivers? Do they lose their jobs?

And that's why the Indian IT industry couldn’t delink the revenue growth with the number of employees as there is a direct correlation with revenue and employee base in the current model. This will not change until we have world class IT products being created by the Indian IT.

The IT industry must seriously invest more on R&D (and not just think of the billability of each resource) to create new ideas, products and solutions. Think of what would work in next 5, 10 and 20 years and plan along.

So, in conclusion, it is definitely not an end of the Indian IT but yes, a large-scale disruption is in order and a chance for Indian IT to adapt, change and be ready for the future.

Black Friday…. when Gabbar went Flying…..

There was an excitement in the hostel, usually that’s there on almost every Friday, a general euphoria. It was a Friday and we were looking for some new releases and to hit FR… the Fun Republic Cinema….

Tolu barged into my room, helmet already on his head. “Oye CR, chal kake jaldi kar... abhi tickets bhi lene hai jake…,” he said restlessly walking around in my room.
“I don’t feel like going for a movie today… mood nahi kar raha bhai,” I said.
“abe ye kya bakwas hai, stop being an a**… aur jaldi kar,” he said.
“Nahi bhai seriously, don’t feel like going, anyway konsi movie ka plan hai tum logo ka,” I said, trying hard to look convincing.
“are yaar koi documentary type movie hai… Black Friday …. aur tum logo se matlab….? tu bhi to chal raha hai..” Tolu Said.
“Nahi bhai.. abe agar jana hota to nakhra nahi karta....” I said.
“Abe ye kya bawkas hai yaar CR,” he screamed.
Well guys, before if u start churning your grey matter and start assigning meanings to the word CR, I would like to tell you, unless of course if you already know it, I got this name for the short of Class Representative, really…. Well, atleast that’s what I believe….

Just as Tolu was about to say something, Taran and Gabbar came in, helmets in their hands. Kya hua CR, asked Taran. And I explained that I simply don’t feel like going. I noticed, Gabbar was looking sober…. very unusual for a Friday evening.
“Kya hua Singh saab,” I asked. Well it turned out that once again someone had stolen his chaddi, after he hanged it outside his room after taking a bath, and he was not too pleased about that.
“Saale kisi canteen boy ne hi churai hai..,” he said.
“Yaar teri chaadi kyo curayenge vo... kisko aayege.. What will they do of it, if they have assumingly stolen it?” I asked.
“agar unhone teri chaddi pehni to upar se belt lagane padegi, they will have to put a belt over it… I think vo log teri chaddi ko kat kar 2-3 chaddi banate hai yaar” Taran said and we all burst out in laughter.
“Kya yaar, f*** ho gaya” Tolu mimicked Gabbar with his pet phrase. I guess that wasn’t the best way to placate Gabbar and his looks told it all, which could be best described as of a person who has constipation for last 3-4 days….

Anyhow, they all started out for the FR. What to say… destiny, fate, or as Paulo Coelho said in Alchemist…. Maktub “it’s written”, whatever it was…. Because as usual, I was supposed to be riding with Tolu on his bike…

I got my first real six-string….. Bought it at the five-and-dime,

Played 'til my fingers bled….. It was summer of '69…......
My phone was ringing… Taran’s call…
“Kya hua badi jaldi movie khatam ho gayi… or u didn’t get d tickets?” I asked.
“Nope, we are toying tolu’s bike to a mechanic, just left Tolu at the clinic, Nitin is with him,” Taran said.
What………?

The story unfolded like this:
As they were speeding through the Madhya Marg to FR, a car speedily overtook Taran’s bike. The car wala…. Poor chap…. how could he have known that Tolu aka ghost rider was also there… on his mean machine….
Tolu looked at him, his eyes saying it all to the car driver… u wanna race, aa saale, how u dare overtook my buddy….
Adrenaline rushed in his body…. Blood rushing to his hands and legs, sucking extra blood from his brain and draining it out….….
His wrist tightened and turned, putting the bike in top acceleration. I reckon the car wala accepted the challenge… so they had a race onnnnn….

Ever heard of tunnel vision? That’s when suddenly everything seems to fade away, time slows down, and you see only on what u are concentrating on… I guess Tolu had it… well that’s one of the possibilities, or he was simply out of his mind due to lack of blood supply to his brain….

The car suddenly turned, moved in a semi-circular way and sped away…. Why did it turn? Before Tolu could realize, it was there…. a roundabout… I don’t know what was on Ghost rider’s mind…. Was the roundabout supposed to vanish or part in middle to give way…. I guess it hadn’t heard of Ghost rider… so it didn’t move.

Tolu crashed into concrete boundary of the roundabout… head-on.. The impact was so much that Gabbar went flying over Tolu’s head, taking all his 100 Kgs with him, and landed in the middle of roundabout…. Gabber’s first experience of weightlessness…

I guess Amit was destined to fly that day… if not one then other… and they say wats in the name…..?

They all went looking for Black Friday and got one, didn’t they......?

PS: By the way, Gabbar's name for the records is also Amit.

A Trip to Shimla…….. Those were the best days of my life…….

When I created this blog I thought of writing something that somehow connected to India and off-course the Youth (as the name of the blog suggests). Well I couldn't do that for some time, so I thought why dont start with a small tale of adventures or mis-adventures of my gang ... my MBA days .. living in Punjab University Hostel....... For You guys.......

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The drums started getting louder…. Yes, it was drums beating somewhere distant. It wasn’t even that distant or was it…, the drums were getting closer and louder… or was it something else…..

“What the f***….” It isn’t drums; I could realize that getting out of my sleep…… “Coming,” I screamed ….. It was my door about to be brought down… what time is it? May be 2 or 3 in the night…..

I went to the door and somehow managed to open it in semi-consciousness. It was Tolu, standing there (well it was one of the few famous names he has acquired ... he had quite a few). “Get your ass moving, we are going to Shimla,” Tolu said in his typical style……

That’s how I describe best days of my life…… living in Boys Hostel No-1 of Punjab University, Chandigarh …..

“What the f*** you are waiting for,” he said looking at me strangely.
“Let me get dressed up atleast,” I said, trying to shed webs of sleep out and coming to terms that I will not get back to bed for atleast tomorrow night.
“Who the hell you wanna dress for anyway, no girl looks at you…. waise bhi abhi raat hai aur andhere mai tu dheekta kaha hai?” he said loudly at the top of his voice for the half the hostel to listen in his signature style, which could be best described as a lethal mixture of Rambo, Arnold and a dozen of Hollywood and Bollywood stars. He was joined by Gabbar and Debu with a few choicest words of their’s.

So I was almost dragged out of my room into the corridor and I was just in my shorts, T-shirt and Hawaii chappals. Getting down the stairs from my room on the second floor to the main corridor, I can see the rest of the gang already assembled there…. Taran, Nitin, Bengali, Shrinu.

So we boarded the bikes, some single, some piggybacking with others. And I found myself again sitting with Tolu on the rear wheel of his bike. I didn’t know why I was there, I didn’t have any insurance and that was not even a ripe age to die, as it was the second most dangerous thing to do (the first being to attend Bawa mam’s class unprepared)…. to ride with Tolu “the ghost rider”

“Let’s eat something first bhai log….,” Gabbar’s voice echoed and was nodded upon and agreed unanimously, as usual… so we rode out of the University’s main gate to the PGI canteen, just across the road, to fill our tanks as well. I can atleast surely say of one thing that if PGI canteen wasn’t there and opened all night, half of us either would have starved or would have been the poster boys (read as models) for malnutrition. After one round of omelet-burgers and shakes we were ready to hit the road.

“Oye, tussi Bawa mam ke test ki tayyari kar li veere?, have you prepared for the Bawa mam’s test tomorrow,” asked Debu trying hard to speak in Punjabi plus Haryanvi accent. Debu had somehow come up with a cunning idea in his quest to speak Haryanvi (with a hint of Punjabi). The crux of idea being to say each word as loud as possible and put a few typical word and phrases in each sentence. Just imagine this all on top of his native Orriyan accent. The result being a language and accent that could have been from Pluto. I guess from his real honest attempt to be Haryanvi, God must have been really pleased with him, as his first job posting was in rural Haryana. And as if that wasn’t enough, he was put into overdue loan collections by his Finance Company, as part of training and job rotation policy. We still find it hard to imagine how he survived’, speaking in his invented Haryanvi accent and meeting JATs of Haryana for collections…but lets keep that story for some other time.

So we started out for Shimla, riding through windy road of Panchkula-Shimla highway. And as unexpectedly expected, we took a detour midway to Kasauli. It was like a race in which you touch the target and get back as soon as possible, but that was the way and anyway the whole fun was in riding on that road rather reaching somewhere. And then we were back on the highway.

It was almost dawn when we arrived in Shimla. As Shimla was about to wake up, we were riding through the empty streets of Shimla. With first rays of sun filtering through the sky, we were standing at the ridge on Mall Road, marveling at the breath taking beauty of the surroundings. It was one of those experiences where you wish the time to stop. You want to soak it all and wish it never goes away. The whole trip and effort was worth it and now looking back, I wish we had more of those trips.

As Shimla awoke, it found a few youngsters roaming around, almost all in shorts and chappals, and searching for a restaurant for the breakfast. We finally found a dhaba and had a wholesome breakfast of aalo-parathas and tea and soon were on our way back to “the city beautiful” Chandigarh. We had time just enough to get back to the hostel, have a quick bath and to reach the class for the test just in time.

Few hours later, we found ourselves in the class, with dizzy eyes, holding question papers and trying to make a sense out of it. I looked around and was meet with faint smiles of those who were brave enough to muster a smile in that situation…. I could simply nod and smile back ….. May be next time, next time…. will prepare for the test anyhow, I promised myself…. But deep inside I knew it was the same promise that we made to ourselves after every test… and followed it up yet again on the next…..

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