Indian IT Industry

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 02 Jun 2014 23:57

Infosys is getting a new CEO. And recently, there was a negative article on Narayana Murthy that investors were losing confidence in him to turn it around.

Infosys investors lose faith in Murthy 2.0

My question to those of you who are in BLR and are in touch with these happenings is, why is INFY in such deep problem? Salary? Bad work culture? Sucky management? Why are TCS and otehr companies doing better?

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 03 Jun 2014 00:08

I would say lack of vision. I heard from the horse's mouth when asked what advise he would give to a US technology start-up bootstrapping itself through sweat equity. It was "jump onto the bandwagon" of outsourcing. By then the market was already so crowded that any company which had limited resources had the same chance of a snowball in hell. My 6th cuz twice removed thanks providence that he and his co-founder did not swallow that advise uncritically.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 03 Jun 2014 00:18

matrim, but what does "lack of vision" mean in INFY's context? Are you saying that they don't know what to do next to compete? All these companies basically do outsourced work, why are people choosing other companies and not INFY?

negi · Post by **negi** » 03 Jun 2014 03:15

Infy is actually not doing too bad; however there definitely exists a negative vibe around them in media and IT circle because of the churn in top echelons . Amongst the top 5 Indian outsourcing giants Infy had the biggest presence in Banking and Financial sector in terms of % of it's yearly revenue and post 2008 it has come to bite them. TCS is simply huge and has most diverse portfolio they literally do everything and hence are chugging at their usual pace at the same others like CTS have benefited from the fact that their areas of strength like insurance and healthcare sector did not get as affected as banking in 2008 and hence escaped rather unscathed.

Infy amongst all is most conservative and also has missed the mobile, social media and cloud bus too.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 03 Jun 2014 04:54

I have worked in several companies that outsource to India, and never has INFY been the vendor.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 03 Jun 2014 07:35

KJoishy wrote:I have worked in several companies that outsource to India, and never has INFY been the vendor.

No wonder you never came across quality, honest, beautiful & Hawt desi itivitys!
- N.Murthy

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 03 Jun 2014 09:24

negi wrote:Infy is actually not doing too bad; however there definitely exists a negative vibe around them in media and IT circle because of the churn in top echelons .

There are rumours that the politician Nandan Nilekani is now marching back to Infosys. Any after his grand scheme (with no legal sanction) has made him Vazhi-Aadhaar*, he can now move from INC to INFY.
*Vazhiyaadharam - Mallu speak which translates to "Road is the proof of residence" i.e, a vagabond.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 03 Jun 2014 09:30

If Bill Gates can drive Nadalla then INFY can bring back founders too.

negi · Post by **negi** » 03 Jun 2014 12:36

RamaY wrote:
KJoishy wrote:I have worked in several companies that outsource to India, and never has INFY been the vendor.
No wonder you never came across quality, honest, beautiful & Hawt desi itivitys!
- N.Murthy

Well when it comes to % of pyts I think technology consulting vendors like Accenture and Delloitte rule the roost. Imho highest pyt to IT munna ratio in India which I have seen is in Goldman Sachs . Product cos are like deserts in this department .

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 03 Jun 2014 12:40

Infy has done a lot to shoot itself in the foot. You have to look at their appraisal systems to believe them. Minimum 2 certifications to be done per appraisal cycle or a year. That is ridiculous.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 03 Jun 2014 12:52

maybe they just need to get smaller and more profitable per employee..abandon wide swathes of low margin areas by hiving off parts..keep a smaller and better qualified workforce paid on par with the best. just size alone is a losing game for them as TCS will continue to crush them.

Sridhar K · Post by **Sridhar K** » 03 Jun 2014 16:16

On the 2 certification parts, the issue is that the *completing the training itself* becomes the goal rather than the objective of the training i.e. improving ones competency. In infy they also introduced some of the BPO practices of mandatory 9.5 hours in office in a quarter and some changes on the role/designation which resulted in a lot of attrition on the middle management level. Also hear that infy is now getting in low margin business which they would not even touch with a 10 feet barge pole earlier.

One of the things that has hit the Indian IT industry biggies on the BFS sector particularly capital markets is that high margins are a thing of the past. Most of them are facing big pressures from captive set ups which are filled with erstwhile desis. All the banks are having huge cost pressures to trim operating cost by above 40%. On the run the bank side, outsourcing as a lever has already been squeezed to the maximum either by means of captive set up or third party outsourcing. Hence they are pushing the service providers to cut costs by 20-40% to retain the contracts or bid for a new one. The discretionary change the bank budgets at an all time low, the development projects have taken a hit.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 03 Jun 2014 17:08

Yogi_G wrote:Infy has done a lot to shoot itself in the foot. You have to look at their appraisal systems to believe them. Minimum 2 certifications to be done per appraisal cycle or a year. That is ridiculous.

hmmm...

>10yrs ago when I was a 'real' manager (not program mgr) I "Yank-e-razed" my team members to go for courses/certifications.

IIRC I prepared a recommended a list in the lines of programming, architecture, proj.mgmt, general design courses, communication & leadership areas built around community college courses & certifications...

The idea was -
1/ one cannot expect 7-15% hike every year, doing the same work that he was hired for 5yrs back.
2/ my team members should have tangible value addition in their resumes by being in my team, instead of just 5yrs of some work experience
3/ makes my pre-sales positioning to the customers more professional & interesting (imagine me offering a team of certified architects in the area of customer's need)
and so on..

In those days I had a team of 50+ in two layers (leads/programmers) and everyone was expecting a hike+promotion+GC+my-testimonials every 6/12 months. I cannot get 50 promotions every year... so I needed a more competitive process... I used use following criteria

1/ Performance. Everyone starts the year with a clean slate. Every unit of work (sized by team) adds a point. customer appreciation adds 3pts, customer complaint -5pts etc., Jo jitaa vahi sikandar (this was to normalize high performers who work 3hrs a day vs low performers who take 10hrs for the same work).
2/ Center of Excellence. At that time we were working on E-commerce. Every team member is given one area. For example payment systems. One should be proficient on different payment systems, how to integrate them, what our competitor product support, what we support, how much time/money it takes to add a new payment system, what are future trends etc.,
3/ Further study/certifications

looks like N.murthi got all the blame for it...

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 04 Jun 2014 09:13

Sridhar K wrote:On the 2 certification parts, the issue is that the *completing the training itself* becomes the goal rather than the objective of the training i.e. improving ones competency. In infy they also introduced some of the BPO practices of mandatory 9.5 hours in office in a quarter.....

Looks like Vegetable Oil.Co also has similar practices. I have family members who work in both Most Admired Co., and Vegetable Oil.Co and many of the company policies are exactly similar. The names may change that is all. Vegetable Oil.Co had introduced promotion tests to the men/women in the trenches. An objective type online test based on their technical skill sets/trade. Then they also have courses and exams to move into the project management side. And then yet another exam (English language skills) if any one wants to try for onsite assignments. 70% is the pass-percentage required. These are classified as "enablers" (for promotions), but most likely are disablers. The hurdles a person need to jump across is now too much. Perhaps this is a sure-shot way to bring down promotion requests. On the negative side, the young crowd also focus on completing these exams and other hurdles and show minimum enthusiasm to do the work on the ground. As some one said, more than showing keenness to learn, people are mugging up in order to clear these exams.

Vegetable Oil.Co also now keeps track of hours spent on the floor. What I could make out from this is that, these companies are now having more and more projects which requires people to do lots of monitoring stuff. That is, they want people to be at their desks checking some thing or the other. The days when people could be given a task, and then NOT micromanaging them are long gone. Perhaps this may be only seen in some Product Cos.

Too much processes, too much exams/hurdles, too much micro-management, lack of communication skills etc. all seems to be plaguing both Most Admired Co. and Vegetable Oil Co. This could also be because both organisations recruit people from the same talent pool.

symontk · Post by **symontk** » 04 Jun 2014 12:41

When you have Agile, you don't need micro managing, it itself takes care of that

Sridhar K · Post by **Sridhar K** » 04 Jun 2014 13:03

^^ Agree but agile works well in a situation where the teams are empowered, understand their roles and responsibility and are accountable. In most of the Indian IT service companies, the major workforce is junior fresh from college graduate and they need a quite a bit of monitoring. Just to give an anecdote, my wife works with the most revered co and her team is spread all over India. When one of the gen y team mate did not join a meeting with the client and she calls him on the mobile, the reply is that *I am in the cafeteria and can I join half an hour late?* and that is not uncommon. If the are given a task, then try and if they meet a dead end, they just stop working and wait until the team lead ask the status.

Considering the billing rate and margin pressures, you have to maintain a certain sr/jr ratio and it is getting tough these days. It is a catch 22 situation. If you don't track productivity, you will find it difficult to deliver considering that most projects/work are badly underestimated while if you micromanage, people get put off and quit. The other issues is that since you have to maintain hours, people stay long in the office but take extended tea/coffee breaks, surf internet etc. The market is good for people with 2-8 years experience.

Earlier, these companies used to select the cream from colleges and it was not difficult to manage. Now with the employee strengths in the upward of 100,000, it has been heavily commoditized and the standards diluted. The Indian markets pressure on quarter to quarter growth in earnings on the biggies is forcing them to scale up, bringing the rates down, so to protect margins, you put more juniors and to manage them heavy mgmt overheads plus and companies are finding it difficult to build competency. The middle management layer bears the brunt of both sides.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 04 Jun 2014 13:21

symontk wrote:When you have Agile, you don't need micro managing, it itself takes care of that

I dont think it is that easy. Agile expects each individual to be quite good (perhaps not excellent) on the technical area, and having good skills to understand what is required, and a good maturity/attitude to take up ownership and complete the activity on time. I feel these models would only work in very niche/selected companies in India, or all across Europe and US; where the work ethics are totally different.

Sridhar K wrote:The Indian markets pressure on quarter to quarter growth in earnings on the biggies is forcing them to scale up, bringing the rates down, so to protect margins, you put more juniors and to manage them heavy mgmt overheads plus and companies are finding it difficult to build competency

I get a feeling that next 5-6 years would be crucial for the Indian IT industry. Especially with most companies going in for junior folks who needs to be paid less. As you rightly said maintaining the competency of the people and the organisation at a whole is going to be challenge. The people who joined the IT band-wagon in its days of inception would be in their late 30s or early 40s now. I dont think they also would be able to slog like the used to, in earlier days (where hikes, promotions etc were quite good if they slogged).

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 04 Jun 2014 13:50

My Point is similar to Singha ji's, Indian companies do not want to go anywhere near a loss and a growth in revenue and profits is a MUST for them irrespective of the economic scenario. Companies must save for rainy days and then use the savings during the rainy days. Infy has some thousands of crores in fixed deposits sitting in banks. They must loosen their purse strings, screw low margin projects and earn employee loyalty big time. To hell with stock going down and investor pressure (easier said than done I know). They mustn't aim to complete with TCS/HCL on low margin projects and keep up that premium image.

Go easy on the employees, build up a pool of resource who will never leave you no matter what and keep the infy brand as premium as against becoming a squeeze-all brand like TCS. When the economy picks up you will have the loyal employees and the premium brand name attracting customers.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 04 Jun 2014 15:30

Yogi_G wrote:Infy has some thousands of crores in fixed deposits sitting in banks. They must loosen their purse strings, screw low margin projects and earn employee loyalty big time. To hell with stock going down and investor pressure (easier said than done I know).

And there lies a catch. I don't think many of the Indian IT-Vity companies have a long term plan to remain in IT. Infosys crowd (the people who started it etc.) have made their fortunes. The smart investors also I am sure would have got a good returns and stocked it well. Similar would be the condition for Veg.Oil.Co, after all the top brass would have minted money and have a diversified products any way. So I really don't think employee loyalty etc. is really a concern today. Don't think Indian IT-Vity majors have a long haul plan. The employees any way are not union-ised of threatening in any way, so they can be side lined (I am sure Bade would poke me for saying this, even when I am staunch anti-commie

).

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 04 Jun 2014 16:47

Who will replace the Indians? Only way this can happen is,

1. Wages need to go down in the west. All this so called "coolie" stuff was cool when they did it, when Indians could do it cheaper the work automatically became inferior in nature and the "high end" work alone remained in the US. So much for west egalitarian attitudes on dignity of labour.
2. Another country/population group is able to scale up as well as India and come up with a proven global delivery model. So far there are only pockets of excellence in specific cabilities from Eastern Europe, China and S.America. None who can catch up with Bharath or even pose some semblance of a challenge in this regard.

So question is where will all this work go? If it were just cheap labour it would all go to Guatemala. If the hordes of Indian IT-Vity chaps dont do IT what else will they do? There are only so many "high end IT work" to go around. With a manufacturing revolution in India and the local economy growing these IT dinosaurs can expect further diversification of revenue base.

Sridhar K · Post by **Sridhar K** » 04 Jun 2014 18:40

Yogi_G

Though some of the current IT services work are getting moved to global centers of Indian companies in Manila, Mexico, China, Eastern Europe etc. the significant work will still remain in India. Some of the work from onshore are also going to captive centers in India, China and Eastern Europe. However, the issue is that the *growth* in offshoring is likely to slow down for Indian companies and they have to diversify. Indian and Chinese markets will provide good scale in the future but the margins will be low for the margin jehadis in these companies. The expectation on the industry needs a reset where Indian investors or stock market accept that you will not have quarter on quarter growth like what you had earlier or as you said the companies have to ignore the Indian stock holders expectation, accept the fact, loosen their purse strings, invest, build for the next generation of work.

You may take a hit now get prepared for the next gen of business but reap reward when things turn around or Don't think most of the current big Indian IT services companies are ready yet to take the plunge of accepting this reality, invest for future. At least mine does not seem to as they continue to chug along. Infy has a chance since they got left behind, got bad press and they can go up from now. Guess you are the same Yogi from the Chennai 2008/9 BR meet with SSridhar, Rajaram in Egmore and if yes, you know which company I am talking about.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 04 Jun 2014 20:37

Sridhar K wrote:Yogi_G

Though some of the current IT services work are getting moved to global centers of Indian companies in Manila, Mexico, China, Eastern Europe etc. the significant work will still remain in India. Some of the work from onshore are also going to captive centers in India, China and Eastern Europe. However, the issue is that the *growth* in offshoring is likely to slow down for Indian companies and they have to diversify. Indian and Chinese markets will provide good scale in the future but the margins will be low for the margin jehadis in these companies. The expectation on the industry needs a reset where Indian investors or stock market accept that you will not have quarter on quarter growth like what you had earlier or as you said the companies have to ignore the Indian stock holders expectation, accept the fact, loosen their purse strings, invest, build for the next generation of work.

You may take a hit now get prepared for the next gen of business but reap reward when things turn around or Don't think most of the current big Indian IT services companies are ready yet to take the plunge of accepting this reality, invest for future. At least mine does not seem to as they continue to chug along. Infy has a chance since they got left behind, got bad press and they can go up from now. Guess you are the same Yogi from the Chennai 2008/9 BR meet with SSridhar, Rajaram in Egmore and if yes, you know which company I am talking about.

Ah yes Sridhar ji, same Yogi from that meet

. Its been a while since another meet.

IIRC Shibulal did try some reform which he said would bear fruit only after 2 quarters or something but before they appeared to bear fruit N.Murthy entered the picture because of investor pressure.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 04 Jun 2014 21:21

Yogi_G wrote:Infy has done a lot to shoot itself in the foot. You have to look at their appraisal systems to believe them. Minimum 2 certifications to be done per appraisal cycle or a year. That is ridiculous.

did they not change this after mass desertions etc when they introduced this new appraisal process?

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 04 Jun 2014 21:36

Yogi_G wrote:Who will replace the Indians? Only way this can happen is,

1. Wages need to go down in the west. All this so called "coolie" stuff was cool when they did it, when Indians could do it cheaper the work automatically became inferior in nature and the "high end" work alone remained in the US. So much for west egalitarian attitudes on dignity of labour.
2. Another country/population group is able to scale up as well as India and come up with a proven global delivery model. So far there are only pockets of excellence in specific cabilities from Eastern Europe, China and S.America. None who can catch up with Bharath or even pose some semblance of a challenge in this regard.

So question is where will all this work go? If it were just cheap labour it would all go to Guatemala. If the hordes of Indian IT-Vity chaps dont do IT what else will they do? There are only so many "high end IT work" to go around. With a manufacturing revolution in India and the local economy growing these IT dinosaurs can expect further diversification of revenue base.

Why this expectation for "egalitarianism"? This is a fight for survival, so everyone will do what they need to do. It's all about the dollar, so if other countries are capable of doing high end work, then that work will go there. While there are smart people working in several companies who are world class, the Indian IT sector has become Walmart where you step in hoping for a good deal in price with no high expectations for quality.

The market will take care of it. If India cannot do it, it will go to other countries, and if they cannot do it, it will come back to the US. India needs to diversify and not just focus on IT. This IT boom will not last forever, better to plan ahead rather than

later on and blame US or any other country.

It's my hope that in the coming decade, we see a few Made in India software products that become as ubiquitous as MD Office. All this while, we just mostly copy other people's work and make it "cheaper" like that fellow who made a $35 tablet.

negi · Post by **negi** » 04 Jun 2014 21:58

I said it long time back here and I am again going to say it i.e. just making a SW product for heck of it is of no use if one is good at flipping burgers then one should stick to it. Infy/TCS/Wipro/CTS/TechM/HCL serve a purpose in the system and as long as they are doing what they do upto a given std. then in the end it is good for India and IT industry as a whole. Innovation or converting ideas into physical products are necessary and needed but it is not a replacement for services a good SW product is of little use if there do not exist enough skilled people who know how to use and develop solutions with the given product. This is India's 1st generation in IT we shall climb the value chain in next 10-20 years once basic needs have been met.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 04 Jun 2014 22:14

Sachin wrote:Too much processes, too much exams/hurdles, too much micro-management, lack of communication skills etc. all seems to be plaguing both Most Admired Co. and Vegetable Oil Co. This could also be because both organisations recruit people from the same talent pool.

I am trying to understand.

IS the demand now that every unwashed Itivity should get 50% hike, promotion, on-site assignment, no-agile, no-status reporting, no project management, no management just because they gave their divine presence in these assorted companies?

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 04 Jun 2014 22:18

IT workers in India expect too much. 10%+ hike every year, multiple promotions a year etc etc. Here our salaries are stagnant and being desi, it is not easy to move up, exception maybe unless you are in Calif.
India had a great 15 years, but things will become "normal" soon. Nothing wrong in that, it is natural.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 04 Jun 2014 22:22

Sridhar K wrote:^^ Agree but agile works well in a situation where the teams are empowered, understand their roles and responsibility and are accountable.

1/ Empowered: Will come to this at the end, i promise.
2/ Understand their roles & Responsibility: Whose responsibility is this? Shouldn't the brilliant programmers who knows the business more than the business owner, knows project management thant project managers, knows testing more than testers/test-managers etc., should know their own role & responsibility first? Even in the worse case of they didnt know what the hell they are doing, shouldnt they be asking the janitor next door about this before joining the agile-team?
3/ Accountable: Once again, who can make the all-knowing developers accountable than they themselves?
....

Now lets talk about empowerment a bit. Who is stopping the developers in asking questions in the team settings, unless they cant ask right questions in a concise way without covering 72 pages of nukkad in each of their 'questions'? Who is stopping the (all knowing) developer to educate/guide rest of the team on why the given story is 8pts and not 2pts as others claim? Who is stopping the developers in figuring out when/how a given functionality is developed and ready for test/accepted etc.?

Given the fact that the developers/engineers know every thing in the world, they should also know something about 'emotional intelligence' and they should be able to handle people of different perspectives, knowledge levels and temperaments? After all they are able to figure out the manager/pm/tester/business-user etc., are all dumb and useless...

Sridhar K wrote: Earlier, these companies used to select the cream from colleges and it was not difficult to manage. Now with the employee strengths in the upward of 100,000, it has been heavily commoditized and the standards diluted. The Indian markets pressure on quarter to quarter growth in earnings on the biggies is forcing them to scale up, bringing the rates down, so to protect margins, you put more juniors and to manage them heavy mgmt overheads plus and companies are finding it difficult to build competency. The middle management layer bears the brunt of both sides.

Aaah... everybody is an idiot except they come from IITs. Fair enough. Assuming this is correct, all the team leads, managers, CBU heads, SBU heads etc., should be from IIT right? Is this true on ground?

P.S: I have been working in this industry and played all these roles one time or another. Don't mean to question the posters, but the perception...

TKiran · Post by **TKiran** » 04 Jun 2014 22:32

In 2011, i came across an intelligence report which stated that what we are seeing in india as IT revolution is not even 5% of the boom. IT services are going to last for another 30 years with double digit growth. Even car mechanics becoming software experts is not exaggeration. There will be so much more demand that, everybody from sweeper to scavenger even if they become software experts, india will not be able to match the demand. Its a a classified intelligence, i stumbled upon accidentally.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 04 Jun 2014 22:39

KJoishy wrote:
Yogi_G wrote:Who will replace the Indians? Only way this can happen is,

1. Wages need to go down in the west. All this so called "coolie" stuff was cool when they did it, when Indians could do it cheaper the work automatically became inferior in nature and the "high end" work alone remained in the US. So much for west egalitarian attitudes on dignity of labour.
2. Another country/population group is able to scale up as well as India and come up with a proven global delivery model. So far there are only pockets of excellence in specific cabilities from Eastern Europe, China and S.America. None who can catch up with Bharath or even pose some semblance of a challenge in this regard.

So question is where will all this work go? If it were just cheap labour it would all go to Guatemala. If the hordes of Indian IT-Vity chaps dont do IT what else will they do? There are only so many "high end IT work" to go around. With a manufacturing revolution in India and the local economy growing these IT dinosaurs can expect further diversification of revenue base.
Why this expectation for "egalitarianism"? This is a fight for survival, so everyone will do what they need to do. It's all about the dollar, so if other countries are capable of doing high end work, then that work will go there. While there are smart people working in several companies who are world class, the Indian IT sector has become Walmart where you step in hoping for a good deal in price with no high expectations for quality.

The market will take care of it. If India cannot do it, it will go to other countries, and if they cannot do it, it will come back to the US. India needs to diversify and not just focus on IT. This IT boom will not last forever, better to plan ahead rather than later on and blame US or any other country.

It's my hope that in the coming decade, we see a few Made in India software products that become as ubiquitous as MD Office. All this while, we just mostly copy other people's work and make it "cheaper" like that fellow who made a $35 tablet.

Well if you go around town giving lectures on dignity of labour you better match up your actions with your words. The moment the services work went out of India it became "low end services" and More Unkil than Unkil Desis parrotted this very line.

I am asking this question "who will replace India"? Philippines matched India in the "lower" BPO, but who is able to offer a credible opposition to India in the software services sector? Who is the question, its not a question of if. In the 15 years or so no one, no one, has come close to India.

There are quite a number of Indian products out there (not as ubiquitous as ms office) that are very popular and raking in millions. Heck I am one of the architects of a world class product which has revolutionized web app building and is used by more than 250 companies most of them fortune 500 ones. Its my company's flagship product and in the floor above me sits a team which built an application server which was considered one of the best in the world at its heyday. This app server is powering thousands of enterprise production deployments across the world!! In major banks. This example is but just one of the many wonderful products from the Indian IT space.

But no, Indians will expect nothing less than a MS office from India, that sir is the veritable product if there is one.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 05 Jun 2014 10:08

RamaY wrote:IS the demand now that every unwashed Itivity should get 50% hike, promotion, on-site assignment, no-agile, no-status reporting, no project management, no management just because they gave their divine presence in these assorted companies?

From what I have seen around - the expectation is yes

. Off-course 50% hike is not expected, but would be in the 10-20% range. Some demand progressions & hike, but others are happy with hikes. I would also partially blame the recruiters of the major service companies. These people are hiring people right out of the college promising moon & the sun. Where as I don't think there is any focus on teaching them responsibility and a professional way of life. A classic case which I have seen is that new recruits expect a project which is 9:00AM-5:00PM, are not very complex (or they have others to baby sit them), 5 days a week always and every time and a life which is similar to their college campus. And since they join en-masse most of their college pals would also be there in the same company. Now when the join up, they are put on maintenance and support project which in many cases are 24/5 and week end stand by support as well

. Since most of these projects are also SLA driven, no more 1-2 hours coffee breaks as they can be called back any time. Many of them ask for a change to a "Development" project. But that is again not a solution. Initial days every one is in a lazy mode, but when it is time to deliver the product all hell breaks loose. That is when people realise that the product works in a different way than expected

. Too many logical errors, and at times even sloppy code (unhandled exceptions, hard-codings and the usual stuff).

Perhaps Indian IT is not a big mess, but "reality checks" should be done at every level. At the IT company, at the middle-management level and at the work-force levels etc. The work-force level folks after their "reality check" may get a chance to try another job. The middle and senior management folks may not have much options.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 05 Jun 2014 10:23

Sachin wrote: Perhaps Indian IT is not a big mess, but "reality checks" should be done at every level.

It never was and is an example of the ingenuity, hard work and vision of whatever talent stayed back in India (with inputs from the talent which left our shores as well) to break through the shackles of Nehruvian frameworks and laws, secular growth rate and left massacred labour setup.

Be it the Germannic tribes, the Japanese, Chinese, the Slavs, the Mediterranean Caucasians or any other population groups which industrialized themselves they all started with blue collar hard work and progressed step by step. India turned around the equation and did something which never had a precedent. Starting with white collar hard work and laying the base for the coming blue collar revolution of massive industrialization.

I would like for my coming generations to be able to choose between becoming a technician or a physician as if they are of the same dignity (which they very well are and SHOULD be BUT IS NOT presently) and not see much of a difference in salary levels and lead a 9-5 job with plenty of savings month on month.

Sridhar K · Post by **Sridhar K** » 05 Jun 2014 12:22

RamaY saar

Guess you got me completely wrong.

1/ Empowered: Will come to this at the end, i promise.
2/ Understand their roles & Responsibility: Whose responsibility is this? Shouldn't the brilliant programmers who knows the business more than the business owner, knows project management thant project managers, knows testing more than testers/test-managers etc., should know their own role & responsibility first? Even in the worse case of they didnt know what the hell they are doing, shouldnt they be asking the janitor next door about this before joining the agile-team?
3/ Accountable: Once again, who can make the all-knowing developers accountable than they themselves?

Your response that I have marked in bold is precisely my point. The answers to all your question is yes but unfortunately the reality is different atleast for significant portion of the population. Hence agile may not be solution except for a team of people who had cut some teeth. Majority of the current day doers in Indian IT services industry is in the 0-5 years bucket. When the organizations were smaller, it used to be the case, people learnt it either by watching seniors or through the work environment but now the scale are so huge with factory approach to services. It is not a problem of IIT brilliant others dumb. It is typical problem associated with scaling up.

I never said that IIT and others are dumb that too when myself is a product of a self financing college and doing reasonably ok if not great. It is never the issue about talent but attitude/mentality. Sachin has explained the current situation sufficiently.

I am just illustrating some of the factors at play here
a) Expectation on Indian IT services company from the Indian Investors to grow quarter on quarter.
b) Change in the profile, EQ, attitude, of the workforce (Gen Y managed by Gen X)
c) Pressures from Captive set ups, others foreign shops in India
d) Current market for the core doers resulting in expectation of frequent hikes
e) Introduction of some of the practices from manufacturing into services.
f) *growth* in offshoring getting saturated.
g) expectation of the customers to reduce cost
h) emergence of low cost players
i) protectionism etc.

Each of the factors exert different degrees of influence and I was just illustrating some of the point.

Sridhar K · Post by **Sridhar K** » 05 Jun 2014 12:28

Gus wrote:
Yogi_G wrote:Infy has done a lot to shoot itself in the foot. You have to look at their appraisal systems to believe them. Minimum 2 certifications to be done per appraisal cycle or a year. That is ridiculous.
did they not change this after mass desertions etc when they introduced this new appraisal process?

It is still there as per my wife though they seem to have climbed down a bit on the enforcement.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 05 Jun 2014 15:07

Cross posting a wonderful post from the 100% FDI in defence poll thread,

macaque wrote:Actually Processors, Motherboards and SoCs are one area where we do not have a problem and are pretty self-reliant.

1. DRDO already does its own custom ARM and PowerPC SoCs that have been deployed sucessfully. Granted the CPU cores
are imported but most IP is available from Indian companies - PCIe, Eth, DDR etc. Motherboards are also designed in India.
lack of fab is an issue but hopefully the 2 new fabs will come online by 2016.

2. To remove the reliance on CPU cores, there is an India Processor program that is developing home grown CPUs based on the
RISCV-ISA from UCB. Most development is happening at IIT-Madras where I coordinate the practical aspects of the project. A whole
range of CPUs from 50 MHz micro-controllers to 16/32 core server parts and 100 core HPC parts are being developed. The program is well known
outside India but seems to have little visibility here ! There is a loose collaboration with UCB, MIT and Cambridge on this effort. So we are in august company.
All output will be
in open source, so anybody can download the CPU code and tape it out. Provided of course if you have a good back-end team and fab access !
Some of the code is already online. See bitbucket.org/casl.

As part of the program we are also developing high speed interconnects based on SRIO (400 Gbits/sec per port), optical interconnects and high speed storage.
See http://www.lightstor.org. In these areas India is defining new computing standards. IIT_M sits in a couple of standards bodies in these areas and the likes of DARPA, USAF, NASA, BAE are represented. So these IPs are absolutely at the bleeding edge and completely free to boot.

I would like to see optical SRIO become a standard for our systems interconnect on all strategic systems. It is faster, cheaper and has lower latency than Ethernet.

The icing on the cake is that one of our collaborators is a company called ProDrive in Netherlands which among other things builds supercomputers for
the US DOE. So potentially our IP could be used in the interconnect on the next DOE supercomputer. Seems to be we will be in a position to embargo !

3. The program is also developing secure processors along the lines of the DARPA CRASH program (see crash-safe.org) and fault tolerant variants
for safety critical applications.

This is not a DRDO specific program but a DieTY coordinated effort to create home grown CPUs that will be competitive with Intel and ARM.
Far from being at the mercy of other countries in a few years time we probably will end up being at the cutting edge of CPU and SoC design.

All this work is in the open, so can be evaluated ,criticized and tested independently. In fact I agreed to drive the program only on the
condition that the key components be in open source. Keeps the program honest.

Some areas of concern remain - Analog IP is still not an Indian forte but the design services companies are getting there.

I agree that even if the fabs come, the support eco-system will take time to develop but we are getting there.

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 05 Jun 2014 17:06

negi wrote: Well when it comes to % of pyts I think technology consulting vendors like Accenture and Delloitte rule the roost. Imho highest pyt to IT munna ratio in India which I have seen is in Goldman Sachs . Product cos are like deserts in this department .

Any channus of getting job with GS

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 05 Jun 2014 18:20

Sridhar K wrote:RamaY saar
Guess you got me completely wrong.

Saar... paisaa me paramaatma! i have to use some post to say what i have to say and today is your turn

One can't expect German/Indian quality at China/Mahiko prices.

The customers are paying $18-25/hr and are happy with the ROI they are getting; thats why this industry is growing with 100,000+ IT companies.

I find it amusing when people complaining on Agile, because they are following some other methodology before... all methodologies are equally easy/complex/boring/asinine/controlling etc you name it. I find it silly for people complaining i dont have anything to save for every 3/4/5/8 hrs of work. That means they dont know how to break their work in to smaller pieces and logically talk about their work. I am not talking about space launches here but general itivity work... exceptions are exceptions, not norm.

There is no need for desi-itivity to worry about the "perception" of quality. I have been working in massa for past 17yrs and the quality of work is no different between a massa peecheddi with 20yrs experience and a desi village engg college grad with 0-5yr experience. Quality is a function of attitude, work ethic, focus, understanding of the problem at hand.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 05 Jun 2014 18:23

Sachin wrote:
RamaY wrote:IS the demand now that every unwashed Itivity should get 50% hike, promotion, on-site assignment, no-agile, no-status reporting, no project management, no management just because they gave their divine presence in these assorted companies?
From what I have seen around - the expectation is yes . Off-course 50% hike is not expected, but would be in the 10-20% range. Some demand progressions & hike, but others are happy with hikes. I would also partially blame the recruiters of the major service companies. These people are hiring people right out of the college promising moon & the sun. Where as I don't think there is any focus on teaching them responsibility and a professional way of life. A classic case which I have seen is that new recruits expect a project which is 9:00AM-5:00PM, are not very complex (or they have others to baby sit them), 5 days a week always and every time and a life which is similar to their college campus. And since they join en-masse most of their college pals would also be there in the same company. Now when the join up, they are put on maintenance and support project which in many cases are 24/5 and week end stand by support as well . Since most of these projects are also SLA driven, no more 1-2 hours coffee breaks as they can be called back any time. Many of them ask for a change to a "Development" project. But that is again not a solution. Initial days every one is in a lazy mode, but when it is time to deliver the product all hell breaks loose. That is when people realise that the product works in a different way than expected . Too many logical errors, and at times even sloppy code (unhandled exceptions, hard-codings and the usual stuff).

Perhaps Indian IT is not a big mess, but "reality checks" should be done at every level. At the IT company, at the middle-management level and at the work-force levels etc. The work-force level folks after their "reality check" may get a chance to try another job. The middle and senior management folks may not have much options.

This is what I say in the seminars i conducted for college students...

Sridhar K · Post by **Sridhar K** » 05 Jun 2014 18:49

RamaY wrote:
Sridhar K wrote:RamaY saar
Guess you got me completely wrong.
Saar... paisaa me paramaatma! i have to use some post to say what i have to say and today is your turn

One can't expect German/Indian quality at China/Mahiko prices.

The customers are paying $18-25/hr and are happy with the ROI they are getting; thats why this industry is growing with 100,000+ IT companies.

Or as we say customer wanting ferrari at the cost of an Indica.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 05 Jun 2014 19:09

^ Small correction...

the customer knows he is paying for Indic and is getting Indica.

The problem is with Indica employees wanting to be ferrari employees without knowing (ignorance is pardonable, but inability to study/analyse is not pardonable) the market for ferrari is hardly 7000 units per year and cannot employ millions of SDREs.

http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes ... -sales.jpg

Even if some self-realized SDREs gain the wisdom of >=ferrari, their market will be limited.