Nasscom to emphasize on reliability, security

From quitting a high profile corporate job to start-up a software services and consultancy company, Mphasis, in the US and build it to one of India’s top 10 software services exporter, Jerry Rao has indeed come a long way. He was conferred the Ernst and Young `Entrepreneur of the Year’ Award in 2001 and has recently donned the role as the chairman of Nasscom. In an exclusive interview with Rahul Gupta of CyberMedia News, Rao shares his plans to establish India as a high quality, secure, reliable software powerhouse and center of best practices in the BPO. Published are some of the excerpts of the meeting.






What would be your priorities and focus areas as the chairman of the Nasscom?



The basic thing about Nasscom is its brand image and the great legacy. It instills a confidence within the industry that we are there to help create an eco-system that will change the face of IT and BPO sector in India. My job will be to build on that heritage and foundation. While the world at large recognizes that Indian IT and BPO companies are truly world class-both in terms of cost and quality. I think the focus should more be on reliability and security. We have to make sure that this should be complemented by good cost possession and high quality and that should be the image.






Nasscom has underplayed the backlash as America's internal issue. How do you justify this?



I don't think we have been trying to underplay. The fact of the matter is that outsourcing is good for American economy, it makes them more competitive and it's good for their companies. What we mean with internal debate issue is really not something where we can influence anything. Also, being the election year, such political issues are bound to crop up as it would in any other democracy and one has to deal with it. In this case, the onus is not on us but on them to deal with it. As far as Nasscom is concerned, I think we have been successful in getting the message across. By and large today most influential think tanks agree that outsourcing is win-win situation for both America and India.

Certainly individuals have been affected during the economic downturn phase. However, recent statistics show that only last month US added more than three lakh jobs. What job loss are they talking about if in one month they are adding up one third of the total number of BPO jobs in India? I think with the US economy showing signs of robust growth, it's just a matter of another two months and there won't be any such outcry. That's what we need. This is an internal American issue that will get sorted out because Americans are responsible people and realize the importance of outsourcing. Nasscom’s job is to basically provide information on how Indian IT has been able to help companies around the world in becoming competitive. I think outsourcing is a legitimate debate within American society.






What is Nasscom’s contribution in building `India Inc’ brand and how do you plan to sell it?



I think Nasscom has been very particular about India Inc brand. Twenty years ago, India did not have the great reputation for intellectual property protection and was associated with piracy. Today, the perception has completely changed and while China is still not considered to be a 'great place for intellectual property', India is looked at differently. I think India owes this to Nasscom, which initiated vigorous anti-piracy moves, publicized it to make sure that intellectual property got the respect it deserves. All this has contributed to India Inc's image. Nasscom was and is still very much committed to making sure that India Inc has a great image in the world.






What is Nasscom’s role as a thought leader?



Nasscom’s job is to create an ecosystem, which is industry friendly, which permits for growth, quality and we are very much doing that. There are some ongoing initiatives that we have taken in past. One of them is as a product forum that encourages companies, which are into product development and Indian Intellectual Property creation space. Many of these are small companies that are coming together under this forum to exchange best practices, to work together, to create a system where there is mutual reinforcement in each other's courts and that's been quite successful so far.

We have created an SME forum and have got about 800 members in that. These SME's today agree on that fact that there has been significant improvement in their communication network. Also Nasscom is very much in the security, data privacy issues that are very much part of thought leadership. We are organizing conferences jointly with various IT associations of US focused on security and cyber terrorism to establish best practices, to do cutting edge work and to do absolute thought leadership. Nasscom is actively associated with some of the leading think tanks like heritage foundation, America enterprises etc in US working on matters, which are of concern at the cutting edge.






How can Nasscom leverage the Indian hardware sector?



Certainly we need to do this. Software industry has zero percent duty and that is largely because of Nasscom and that has resulted into the high growth in this sector. I think through free trade, we can have high growth. We should move to an environment, wherein we have hardware segment also to have zero duty and I am glad that government is committed to do it in phased manner, but sooner we move, it is better. We are ready to provide any kind of support required, and ready to work for hardware industry also because I think it will eventually help the whole industry.

Commitment to free trade creates world-class companies, world-class infrastructure and world-class deliveries and it's important as you are now competing with the best in the world. I agree that the focus of Nasscom should be IT in its broader sense including the IT enabled services- both domestic and export segment and in export, both big and small companies, the service providers and the product providers. We should have large clients. We cannot follow a rigid classification anymore nor can we confine ourselves to anyone particular segment. I think IT industry in its totality should move and grow.






How well is the industry poised to handle risks in contracts?




It is really part of maturation process. When the process is not mature, you have open ended contracts The risk certainly increases but the margins also increases at the same time and I think within the SEI-CMM framework, which most of the Indian companies have, there are ways to manage that risk. Then there are big companies who have their own ISOs and internal procedures to handle that. I think this is a good idea to encourage, exchange best practices and we will take up this idea to encourage exchange of ideas on risk management, risk mitigation in enterprise contracts.

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