In The Spotlight

It’s all happening in Asia but who will lead? 

Data Quest Article, 04/2010, Ganesh Natarajan

A dozen or so years ago, I landed in the wee hours of the morning at Mumbai’s decaying Sahar airport into a pouring July monsoon. Procuring a pre paid taxi ticket with great difficulty I was bemused to find that the young taxi driver from Ranchi, my home town, had little or no capability to navigate the car through the pouring rain. A few minutes and a conversation in Bhojpuri later, I exchanged seats with him and managed the drive home in a creaking taxi that barely made it to our destination. On the first of April this year, the scene was almost repeated as my Shanghai cab speeding down the elevated road to Pudong airport spluttered a little twenty kilometers from the airport and threatened to make me miss the flight. However the great resource and resolve of the driver and some inspiration from the Mandarin chatter with an adviser on the other end of the phone line enabled us to make it to the airport on time for my flight. So much is different and yet so much is still the same in the great countries of India and China!

Prior to China, I spent two days in Tokyo at the tail end of the Cherry Blossom season and wondered at the huge opportunity lost by this country and also the elegance and work ethic that created the opportunity in the first place. Japan is still one of my favourite countries and as a succession of business meetings started and finished at the exact pre-determined time and the efficiency of the train systems made multiple conversations, from Shibuya to Kawasaki to Osaka to Asakusa happen with precision, it was easy to discover the attention to detail that makes the Japanese such a pleasure to deal with. However, the precision at the periphery does not conceal the problem that persists with the dogmas of a civilization that remains incredibly wealthy but refuses to be nimble and adapt to the realities of globalization.  No wonder then that it remains one of the toughest markets for the Indian software sector to build growth businesses. Clearly a legendary economic power of yesterday that will need some rude economic shocks to find a way out of a two decade recession! Sipping sake and sampling an exclusive array of Japanese dishes with business school buddies at a Sakura garden that evening, even my Japanese friends were in agreement that the next generation should face the challenge and give new direction to the country.

No such problems in China though – Friday night partying in Shanghai’s bustling downtown reveals an energy that would put many of the world’s hot spots, from New York to Barcelona to Paris in the shade with the latest electronic gadgetry and haute couture on display as the Chinese youth demonstrate the new found confidence of a post recession nation that now knows it is unstoppable. At the signing ceremony for Zensar’s fifth Global development center at Baoshan in Shanghai, the Government officials from all three centres – Beijing Shanghai and Baoshan who were present were polite and helpful but by no means obsequious, fully aware that a Chinese presence was now an integral part of any firm’s global presence. The scale of infrastructure buildup in Shanghai and many other cities of the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas is an oft repeated story, but the revelation for me and possibly a comparison point between the three countries of Japan, China and India is this confidence that prevails in the top ten and more cities of China – here is a country that has arrived in every sense of the term and they are willing to show it!

No jingoistic patriotism here but after a week admiring the similarities and contrasts of Japan and China the feeling persists that India will still lead the services world in 2020. The Software exports industry in India has taken a major lead over competition and it will take a lot of projects experience before the young and willing Chinese graduates are able to compete for Western projects of significance. The manufacturing industry has demonstrated the value of scale in China and the real challenge in IT from this country will come, not just in hardware manufacturing, but also in Remote Infrastructure Management and global applications support, where innovation and language familiarity which are our scoring points, will not be as important as geo-political and economic stability and the ability to deploy large numbers of trained personnel, which the Chinese can offer and scale faster than any other nation. Can we as an industry embrace China collaboratively and retain the lead in larger opportunity creation and global project management? The answer to that will determine who holds the aces in the world of global sourcing!