Mixed response to Nasscom Leadership Forum

Mixed response to Nasscom Leadership Forum

Great place to network as always, okay to learn new stuff but not as good as last time, here's the feedback from behind the scenes as CyberMedia News checks out

Pratima Harigunani

Friday, February 15, 2008

MUMBAI, INDIA: Contemporary issues, a fertile networking ground and highbrow congregations: Nasscom meets have been known for all these and much more.

The Nasscom Leadership Forum 2008, which concluded here today, served all this right again, but received a mixed review from the participants.

A prominent feature this year was the pan-Asian representation of delegations from countries such as China, Malaysia, and even from geographies like Egypt and Wales.

The meet definitely provided the delegates from those countries the best ground to woo Indian companies, their investment and talent to their land.

However, just how much of the intra-country hobnobbing materializes into deals and investments in future, remains to be seen.

As Anshul Kumar, director, Business Solutions, Netlink, said on the onset of the meet, "It's too early to comment. Conversations have happened, but just how do they pan out would be visible in the next 90 days."

Fanny Chan, senior vice president, Chinasoft International from China, sounded hopeful about driving more Indo-China partnerships.

"We are interested in partnerships, that too with the second tier companies. The tone and efforts set here will have to be carried over and be materialized,” he said.

It's almost a cliché but the rupee-dollar volte-face is palpable in the undercurrents here as well. As some corporate delegates pointed out, the mood this time was dismal.

"Last year, we were much upbeat with everything going in our favor and under control," one delegate said. The feedback on the design of various sessions and discussions was mixed again.

Sessions were quite many and almost back-to-back. The topics covered were across the spectrum from CIO issues, to CEO issues on mergers and acquisitions, global leadership topics, outsourcing, engineering services, Asian collaboration, etc.

Comparisons with last year were natural and so were some voices of dissatisfaction.

Rohit Sharma from GlobalLogic felt the abject absence of any discussion on outsourced product development (OPD) this time.

"There was something on Enterprise Solutions Office (ESO) but surprisingly nothing on OPD which needs a big boost and is growing as the next big India wave."

For the rest, and quite many of them, Nasscom meet still stays the best island to catch up with each other and at the same time cultivate fresher networks.

A delegate from Dubai agreed, "It's quite a power-packed gathering with lots of possibilities." Ajay Shankar Sharma from Srishti Software felt that he got some good chances to network, which might fructify.

Some delegates were candid: "We come here purely for networking. You can't take much lessons from here."

Yet, there are quarters of dissent, which feel that the results of generating leads here are not as positive.

“You can get only one to two per cent success out of the people you meet. If put more efforts, it stretches at best to five per cent," said a delegate from Pune.

But still, the forum remains and provides a way to check if the executives are in the right tracks or not. As Sharma sums up as his key takeaway, "It's a good place to know what the higher intellectual bandwidth is thinking about. The main output is the high-level CEO thoughts."

(pratimah@cybermedia.co.in)

©CyberMedia News