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I have collected over a million miles travelling between US, India and China and must be one of the many who has frequent miles on American, Air India and Air China. Sometimes I think this blog should have been titled as “A Perspective from Seat 3 B” as many of my thoughts emanate from the interesting conversations I have with fellow travelers in 3 A and 3 C. When combined with the thoughts that come from voracious reading (also mostly done when in transit!) and thought provoking discussions with some of the best minds in the world today, what emerges is a compelling stream of thought. In the last 20 yrs, travelling through various geographies, I have surprised myself by arriving at conclusions based on this stream of thought - I call them distant signals which will become drum beats fairly quickly!
The distant signals today indicate that the markets have moved Eastwards but the mindset is essentially Western. A disaster waiting to happen is evident on the ground as West meets East with over-engineered products, complex systems and armchair decision making. The East, as I see, is meeting West with entrepreneurship, ground breaking thoughts and cost breaking markets with migrating population happy to be on the ground to create market understanding.
This post is for those who believe in the West’s domination of the world and for some more enlightened souls who smell an opportunity in a “collaborative enterprise” between West and East. There is urgency for action here and now, because tomorrow, like the automobile industry has shown us, the East may not need the West. If the current inflow of capital in showcase institutions of the West from East is not an indicator of what is to follow, I don’t know what other proof one is waiting for. This post was written way before the cash started moving from East to West but I dare say I predicted it and predicted a lot more – this is just a beginning.
However the optimist that I am, I see only opportunities – huge opportunities in the marriage of ideas, intellect, spirit and markets in building global corporations of the size and scale the world has not seen so far. Imagine a corporation with management robustness of West and entrepreneurial enterprise of East, capital markets of West and cost consciousness of East , engineering innovation of West and development excellence of East – imagine the Blue ocean opportunity for creating global operations in the world of ever changing realities where the past has no relevance for future.
The critical question is will it happen as a collaboration or transfer of power. Well if I could tell you that I would predict the future, which I can’t. However I will end with a note of caution - we do know that West can’t do it alone…let us not quickly assume that East can.
Often while evaluating the challenges and opportunities facing my organization and the industry on the whole, I am faced with a question of how to build a truly global organization having global leaders who essentially will come from the next generation. The changing environment indicates that what was true in the past is not true now. So what’s so different about the environment today than it was five years ago?
I was at the INSEAD global leadership Summit recently where I was invited to speak on a very relevant topic for today’s times- ‘Responsible Leadership and Sustainable Growth’. The discussion and the subsequent questions on the sidelines of the event set me thinking. Is developing sustainable technologies still a nice to have? Or are organizations today realizing the imperative nature of doing business that is environmentally sound? Are India and Indian business as aware as their counterparts in Europe and the US?
I believe corporate India today is just as committed as any developed economy to evolving a sustainable business model. This is because we have a greater need and an opportunity to do so. Indian businessmen are as global in their thinking as their counterparts around the world. Business leaders today are setting the tone for resolving issues pertaining to the environment, a topic that will be on the agenda tomorrow just like democracy was a century back. People were not born aspiring for democracy but once they learnt about it, they started asking for it. Democracy came about not because some leaders said that it was the right way to go, but because the people at grass roots could see the difference it was bringing in their lives. So will ‘being green’. Businesses will go green because it’s good for business and for society.
Question is- what will bring about that step change that is required to set the juggernaut rolling?
video/x-flv (25 283 ko) As I travel to MLabs’ inaugural conference on ‘management innovation’, my thoughts drift back to the first time I interacted with the brain behind this unique initiative. Ideas that I have nurtured since long came up as I spoke with Prof Gary Hamel and along with it the delight that some of these ideas have successfully been implemented in HCL. But as always, I am excited to learn new ways that others have of ‘reinventing management’ for the 21st century.
Our society today is faced with many intimidating challenges and for this state to improve, those truly committed to improving it cannot shun away their individual responsibility and dwell in the easy languor of the past. Equal opportunity lies in front of each one of us to bring about a positive impact, individually or collectively. There are several examples of good citizenship on part of corporate today but not all of these efforts result in the intended success nor are sustainable. 
More often than not an initiative ‘ one initiated for non-profit purpose, lacks in the rigor which can usually be associated with a profit-making business venture. Social initiatives aiming to have a magnitude of impact need to have clearly defined purpose, vision, objectives, milestones, sustainability and measures for success. It would be useful to categorize them under ’social entrepreneurship’ as against the general ‘do good’ initiatives, for the results expected in both the cases are different.
The very first question we will need to ask would be in defining the right strategy for the kind of impact we want to create. The answer lies in a classical ‘T decision’, where the horizontal line depicts the breadth and the surface area it covers and the vertical line depicts the depth. For instance, the critical choice here may be between impacting the lives of say a million people by intervening or working at critical points of a process vs. a more in depth initiative of impacting the lives of few hundred by taking complete responsibility of the whole process.
Both kinds of initiatives have their merits, thus making this classical T decision very important from a visioning point of view, than execution, as it really does not matter how and where you start.
The second critical question to address is the issue of sustainability - long term sustainability, both in financial terms and in terms of the continuity of the initiative. Two models can be considered, which are quite distinct and again can be represented in the T form. The first model which is represented by the horizontal line can be equated with creating sustainability through partners collaborating for funding and execution. The second model depicted by the vertical line works on the principle that one organization or party takes on the ownership of bringing the change, not very different from how family owned business runs their operations. I truly believe that there is no limit to the amount of finance one can raise for such initiatives. The problem here has more to do with ideas and finding people with high credibility willing to roll up their sleeves for executing and scaling up the initiative.
The third critical question we need to ask is the value we intend to create through the initiative- value, which is unique and different and would thus impact people in ways it hasn’t in the past. The search for this value and the investment model that will help create it is core to such social transformation, especially if this initiative has to be sustained in the long run. Such social entrepreneurship models can be scaled up successfully while the ones lacking value centricity at their core probably would lose out while facing execution challenges.
The fourth critical question to address is whether the impact of the initiative can be assessed and measured easily. Various studies and research available today outline principles of measurement that help evaluate the impact on a scientific basis that organizations can use.
The last question we would need to answer is about the organization structure to adopt that would passionately create a long term sustainable initiative. The definition may differ as it comes from an introspection and discovery of the kind of people you would like to work with and the kind of culture and value you want the organization to imbibe and be known for. It is good to have a result oriented outlook for such initiatives; however some thinking on the long term and the short term perspective will go hand-in-hand in bringing the feeling of joy, achievement and fulfillment to all the people associated with it.
While many social initiatives are being taken on and will continue to be taken on, my belief is that our effort should be directed more towards initiatives that are sustainable and scalable for maximizing impact on society.
A fellow participant at the MLabs conference recently shared a case on the campaign to save 100,000 Lives by Institute for Healthcare Improvements. Intrigued by the target number (being a business leader that attracts the most) I set out to read how this ambitious & bold target of saving them in 18 month’s time was achieved.
Many things stood out as I continued to read that I could relate to. The first point was their mission “to transform the quality of health care and health outcomes globally”. Clearly evident is the fact that some one or in this case the healthcare community working on this campaign was not OK with the status quo. They found it unacceptable and were willing to bring about a change or alter the status. It was easy to draw a parallel to our business or organization setup and the transformation journey we began in 2005, when some of us raised concern over “what is so” right now and how it is not good enough. And “catalysts” to initiate and execute a change were born.
A hundred deals for 5 million dollars each or five deals worth 100 million dollars each. Come to think of it, though the former leaves you with impressive statistics to boast about what the company has been doing or targets being met, is it the same as brining greater value to a fewer number. And isn?t that what we used to learn in a certain generation in school - that you can do more for less, and that too very successfully.
Often, when I look at the Indian IT industry, I am forcibly reminded of a similar industrial situation a couple of centuries ago. It is one that every Indian school going kid of a certain age is familiar with: India, which had been famed for its high-count, fine-quality cotton since the centuries before the Common Era, was reduced to supplying raw material to the powers-that-were. We lost out on our markets by bring forced to provide low-value raw material and products. Sure, it was probably easier to do, for the producer, at an individual level but the opportunity costs were tremendous. India as a brand, became associated with low-value, low-grade products and was seen as a source of basic raw materials rather than high-end finished products. We had the capability but we were not being able to utilize it.
Alright, so we had the edge when it came to the initial entry in the BPO market. 
Advantage India was based on pure play labor arbitrage. We were offering the requisite skills and services at far lower costs than that of our closest competitors and we are likely to maintain this edge over the US for another 18 years while offshoring low-cost IT services to India will be profitable for the next 30 years (according to a Cygnus report “QPAC, Indian ITeS 2006″?). But the race which we began is now being run, and run well by other players - newer players like China and Phillipines while utilizing the benefits of the Indian experience, are offering increasingly attractive options, with Indian wages rising every year.
The budget announced this year in the context of IT industry has initiatives towards skill building and Information connectivity especially to the rural areas. This indeed is a positive step forward towards making real investment in people who form the backbone of the IT services industry. Renewed commitment to social sector and Infrastructure development is the key to an inclusive growth strategy that will give stable and sustainable growth in the coming years. This in turn would be good for the industry. Looking from a long term perspective, I see this budget focusing on the “supply” side challenges and if that focus is continued we would see India retain its competitive edge in the coming years. We have to see this as a very welcome “strategic change”? as a significant positive and leverage this to build IT Industry further.