India is doing badly in IT
America, ‘he said will lose the war. And Italy will win it.America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth,’ Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity.’ And the American fighting man is second to none’
‘Exactly,’ agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. ‘Italy on the other hand is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that’s exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your county is doing so poorly.’
….
‘But Italy was occupied by the Germans and now being occupied by us. You don’t call this that doing very well do you?
‘But of course I do. ‘Exclaimed the old man cheerfully. “The Germans are being driven out and we are still here. In few years you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. … Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own county has been destroyed.’
…
“America is not going to be destroyed!’
‘Never?’ prodded the old man softly
“well… ‘ Nately faltered.
The old man laughed indulgently, ... ‘Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed, all great countries are destroyed. Why not yours?
…
‘ I don’t believe anything you tell me,’ Nately replied, with a bashful mitigating smile. “The only thing I’d believe is that America is going to win the war.’
‘You put so much stock in winning wars, ‘the grubby iniquitous old man scoffed. “The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just sees how splendidly we’ve done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled in to serious trouble, we helped start a world war we hadn’t a chance to win. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.
The above extract is from “Catch22” a must read book. see catch22 in wikipedia.
There are multiple faces to the above argument between Nately and the old man. I try to highlight one of it. It says when ever you think you are winning actually you are loosing in long term perspective. You have to lose a good many battles to win the war. But it doesn’t end there; if you want to continue to win you need to start loosing again. What will you get by loosing; you ensure that you will not be destroyed?
India’s IT industry is now in a wining streak that means it is going to be destroyed if this continues. When you are in a winning streak you are not learning any lessens for survival and when your luck drains and start loosing you cannot survive and will be destroyed.
America was doing badly before 2000 and after the dot com crash they are started doing well. America and other countries are doing well in IT now. Currently India alone is doing badly. Unless we start loosing now, India’s IT revolution will be a lesson in history books.
The argument may not be convincing at first. But if you investigate more you will understand that it is fundamentally strong than you think. The first signs of loosing shows up with the quality of education. When anyone comes out the college gets a high paid job you are starting to loose. Students don’t have to learn anything to get a job and gradually the people comes out of the colleges doesn’t have the basics required for survival and good for nothing in the long term. If this trend continues India will have scarcity of the good programmers and abundance in programmers in few years. Even now the industry started feeling the crunch.
Now the curriculum is tailored for IT industry it is a curriculum for short term profit and not for long term growth and survival. If you want the students from the colleges to be employable and start productive from day they join, flexibility is being compromised. When the software development paradigm shifts these people and the companies cannot survive. The next problem is the commitment of the employees. Since the jobs are plenty this is not considered as a required quality now.
The quality of the software products will be affected due the lack of skilled and committed developers. Unless the IT solutions and products contribute to the customers bottom-line this accelerated growth phase cannot continue.
It is time for the companies to analyze the software they are creating and do a self check whether any one will pay for the software they create after 10 or even 5 years. If not then you have started digging your grave.
Cost advantage cannot and will not drive outsourcing forever. If companies are thinking that they have a cost advantage compare to American companies then it is time to re-evaluate the cost of quality. Only the talent pool can drive the outsourcing. When this started shrinking all cost related advantages will be nullified.
As more and more software jobs are outsourced only skilled people can survive in American IT market and the quality will improve. Shortly down the line the a product that takes I person month in USA or Europe will take 4 to 5 person month in India considering maintaining the same quality of the product. Also the Indian salaries will grow to a limit where outsourcing will no longer give cost advantages and the turn around time still will be more. This estimate has done keeping in mind the communication factor which is involved in the offshore development model. Martin Fowler's article gives another perspective on the offshore development model
This is one side of the picture. Consider the damage IT has already done to the traditional production industries and the economical gap it created from the increased buying power and the inflation the collapse is not far away.
posted by Chathan @ 8:42 AM
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