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In search of positivism

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CIOL Bureau
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At a panel discussion in the TIE Links event organized at Bangalore where eminent Professor CK Prahlad quizzed Nandan and former SEBI and LIC Chairman Bajpai on the economic downturn and its repercussions, an interesting point was brought up. In the midst of a plethora of arguments and counter arguments about the causes, the width and depth of the recession sweeping the world, the Nobel Prize for Economics would probably go to the old lady who withdrew all her money from the banks and kept it hidden under the mattress! Even today with wave after wave of bad news and corporate collapses hitting the headlines with unerring regularity, the worst is probably yet to come and the upturn that could give us a collective sigh of relief is still to be sighted on the economic horizon. 

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Having said that, Professor CK rightly argues that a crisis is too good an opportunity to misswhile the demand environment remains sluggish, an opportunity to revisit our basic value proposition and launch a slew of new products and services is very much there. As Anduela Kola, a young Albanian turned American citizen who runs Zensars East Coast Enterprise Telesales told me candidly in an email: We now have to tell our customers and prospects how to save money, not where to spend money!

In every aspect of the industry, salesman productivity will now have to be measured in the ability to pluck out multiple small deals and not just hope for the mega million dollar breakthrough. With caution being the watchword in all hiring decisions, collaboration with larger players in areas of niche competence could present a never before opportunity for emerging companies to build a client base and demonstrate their skills to partners and customers alike.

It may be a clich to say that the most successful start-up business are created during periods of downturns, because the implementation of a new product or service would always be done without frills and providing demonstrable value to the customer, a value that will greatly contribute to excellent business growth.

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Our country of course has been hit in December by the double whammy of the terrorist attack on Mumbai and the economic declinecancellation of customer visits, a dull tourist inflow in the peak season and ongoing concerns about job losses and low hiring levels in all campuses have led to a feeling of despondency in young people. As somebody rightly remarked, this is the time for the USA to start saving and India to start spending because a tightening of wallets in India will only aggravate the situation. Retailers and real estate developers will be hit hardest and a potential vicious spiral of degrowth affect all businesses. All of us in the knowledge industry would do well to keep the search for opportunities active in all markets and segments, and entrepreneurs should be actively exploring the discontinuities in vertical domains. As purchasing departments increase the hunt for, superior solutions in a range of areassecurity, hosted solutions could retain the fizz in the industry even as more traditional services take the back seat for some time.

The next couple of quarters should also see a stronger focus on identity management and security in our industry. Industry-wide adoption of the National Skills Registry (NSR) scheme by all companies and even academic institutions will help overcome resume fraud that has become a nuisance in recent times.

The forthcoming annual leadership summit of Nasscom will give all of us an opportunity to connectwith each other and with global CEOs and CIOsand reaffirm the faith that our industry has the resilience not just to survive but grow substantially even in 2009. May the force be with us!

The author is deputy chairman & MD of Zensar Technologies and an Executive Council member of NASSCOM for 2007-09. He can be reached at ganesh@cybermedia.co.in