Recently I read the book 'The world is flat' by Thomas Friedman, Winner of Pulitzer Prize for three times.
I liked the book, mainly because it discussed the controversial issue of outsourcing which has been subject of my study for long time. I have been reading the books indicating the economic revolution IT sector is making in the world and indian economy since 2000, when I established Dnyandeep Infotech company in sheer enthusiasm of getting advantage of phenominal growth in IT sector.
George Orwel's '1984', Alwin Toffler's 'Future shock' and 'Third wave',Bill Gate's 'World at speed of thought' had given me enough strength to plung in the new IT wave. 'Silicon Valley Greats'by Kshatriya showed the pioneering efforts done by Indian Entrepreuners in IT development.
The book 'World is flat' showed brighter side of changes occuring due to sudden surge in outsourcing and discussed its impact on America, India and China.The author visited 'Infosys' in Bangalore, interviewed top brass officials analysed the progress made by China in production and India in supply of technical manpower and predicted that the forces of economy and advancement in ease of communication will crush all barriers raised by advanced countries for free flow of products and services and the world economy will be flattened. He gave many examples of overall economy and growth achieved by such outsourcing of services and production not only in the supplyer country but outsourcing country as well.
In the first reading, I was very much impressed by the analysis and predictions done by the author and felt that this flattening effect also will occur at local level within a country and possibly small infotech firms located at remote places will get boost and it will have beneficial impact of employment generation in rural area, reduction in urbanisation and progress towards green habitat.
However, after introspection and considering the real life experience in the IT business, I revealed that the barriers to stop flattening are too strong and are continuously being reinforced by corporate sector and governemt machinery to such a level that outsourcing only creates other protected castle hills rather than flat ground.
In India, atleast, the picture is far from flat world envisaged by author of the above mentioned book. Satyam suprimo, Raju had a dream of outsourcing his projects to rural area, but he messed up the company trying to save corporate image. TCS, Infosys and Wipro are trying to expand their empire by recruiting people in thousands to work in their lavish palace like offices in urban centres. Government, though serious about improving rural economy and employment generation is actually supporting corporates to handle all IT business. Small IT jobs of software and web technology available in rural and semiurban areas also are being grabbed by software corporate giants leaving the local small businesses with no choice but to survive on training classes.
In our case, our small company located in Sangli, a small town,had designed website of Kolhapur Corporation and we were hoping to replicate the exercise and expand out activities. Suddenly one day, it was learned that the job has gone to HCL corporate. Even the job of small municipality like Islampur was snatched from us by some such agency. There are number of such exaples in other fields also where Government machinery is used tacticlly by big corporates to grab such small jobs available in large numbers all over India. The impact is similar to malls taking over small shops. Educational institutes flourishing at all places are only producing feed for corporate companies.
In America, Australia and Europe, the Indians are under great pressure of resentment from local population, job insecurity and increased financial problems. Blogs in media by these people reveal that they are afraid of unemployment due to outsourcing being done by their company to their own country, India. They are becoming sceptical about the advantages and prospeity being enjoyed by their counterparts in India.
Many are thinking of of returning back to India and join such lucrative local IT corporates. But very few consider the real potential of economy and happiness in their native places. If such people return and transform their living places in India to prosperity by using skills of modern communication and global business ideas, then only we can say that world is becoming flat.
In the present circumstances of selfishness and greed of persons,corporates and countries this does not seem possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment