Inherent legacy
While the number of these well educated, university degree holders have been swelling over the years, the overall economy has lagged behind, in terms of value-added returns. For example, we have traditionally exported perhaps the best shoe-uppers, but some one else would make a complete shoe from it and sell under their brand. We would produce some of the best cotton fabric, but would have to sell the garments under someone else's brand name. We would export the metal ore in only semi-purified form and import the purified metal at much higher prices, even for our own consumption.

The IT Scenario
The Indian IT scenario has not been much different either. With the domestic market growth remaining sluggish for many years, the industry focused on the developed nations, and the lack of proximity to the end customer meant that for years we specialized in providing services rather than solutions and products.

The profile of the Indian IT Services has been undergoing a change in the last few years, partly as it moves up the value chain and partly as a response to the market dynamics. Economies of most of the developed countries are currently in the early stages of, what I think, a ten-year growth cycle, primarily fueled by the Internet, mobile communication and biotechnology. There is an acute shortage of manpower required to maintain the levels of current economic growth in these countries. India is one of them. The professional services market, which was in its infancy ten years ago, has grown significantly ever since and is now rapidly consolidating. Ten years ago, most US companies would not even consider outsourcing some of their IT projects to outside vendors. Now, ten years later, a vast majority of US companies use the professional services of Indian Software engineers in some manner, through large, medium or small companies or through individuals recruited directly.

Market Dynamics
The market competition is forcing organizations to cut down on costs of products. The professional IT services on the other hand are becoming increasingly expensive. The offshore software development model is today where onsite professional services were ten years ago. There is a high chance (almost a mathematical certainty), that in less than ten years, the vast majority of IT services (software development being just one of them) from developed countries, will be, one, outsourced and two, outsourced to an offshore vendor.

The industry is in an expansion mode right now, with dozens of new offshore IT services vendors emerging everyday, the industry has a high probability of being subjected to the 80:20 rule in not too distant a future. In perhaps another ten years, 80 percent of all outsourced offshore development work will be done by 20 percent of all vendors, a small number of high quality, trusted vendors. Only a few select countries and only the most professional companies in those countries, will emerge as winners. India will definitely be the country of choice for offshore software development. We have the potential to become and remain the country of choice for all software developments and IT enabled services, second only to the USA. The third choice could be far distant.

To become a global leader in the IT industry and retain that position, we need to constantly keep moving up the value chain, focusing on finished products and solutions, rather than purely on skill sets and resumes. We need to be able to package our services as products, rather than offering them as raw material. We need to be able to recognize and build up on our strengths and work on our weaknesses.

Project Management: The missing Link
Most of the project managers are senior technologists, who are not trained to manage expectations, scope and deliverables, especially when they have limited direct exposure with the customer. To some of them, being designated as a project manager is a natural progression without enough evaluation done for the skills of managing teams and customers. The technology and functionality challenges of a project, excite most of them and the challenges of project management are often not even recognized. Successful project managers need to have some characteristics of a successful entrepreneur, being conscious of the project bottom line throughout the project.

Quality assurance and management is a critical ingredient of successful IT services practice. What it needs to become, is a cultural issue. Formulation of processes,

Practices and Standards to train the uninitiated; an effective monitoring and measurement mechanism to know the effectiveness of these; and an environment where people take pride in their work and any compromise on quality is disliked.

The Business Analysts are often unable to fully understand the customer's requirements. Although the software industry has been increasingly bringing in functional experts and business analysts from various industry segments, the lack of mature processes at most organizations make the integration of functional and technology teams at best, inefficient. This affects the customer confidence in buying solutions.

On a cautious note
What we have achieved in the IT services sector is not insignificant.but a much larger opportunity still awaits us. The question we constantly need to ask ourselves."Are we Ready For The Show?"