Asoke K. Laha
President & MD,
Interra IT
Is IT bouncing back to its past glory? Many are betting on it, others are in a “wait-and-watch” mode and still others scotch that emergence. Where do the facts lie? I am aware that the topic does not exactly match with the contemporary issues that people in India and abroad are talking about. The Indian scene is dominated by elections, gas price, slow pickup of the manufacturing sector and many more. The world economic debate centres around Russian intervention in Ukraine and its aftermath mayhem in the stock market, including India, US stand on weak intellectual property laws in the developing world, especially FIFA World Football Cup and, of late, Oscar Awards.
Buffeted in the skirmish of these burning issues, what is the relevance of resurgence of information technology? Some of you may differ with me. But I firmly believe that a return of glory and hallow around IT can spell many good things.
The central plot of this column is return of the pristine days of information technology. I believe that it is going to take place sooner or later. But my conviction has a different rationale. I do not believe that the mergers and acquisitions that are happening in the IT space is an indicator of that. The social networking giant Facebook has acquired the mobile messaging giant WhatsApp for an astronomical sum of US$19 billion. Equally important is the Google’s efforts to consolidate the mobile telephony space through recent takeovers.
There are also important takeovers happening on a day-to-day basis in the US, including the US$3-billion Convergys’s takeover of Stream Global Services. My take is that such developments will keep on happening as a part of corporate consolidation. But terming such developments as a harbinger for sustained growth and resurgence of information technology, according to me, is misplaced.
Then, what are the sustained trends? I would like to go beyond time to explain what I conceive are the future growth trends of information technology. If you feel that the ideas that I am espousing are Utopian and farfetched, I would only say that I have the right to hold that opinion like you have the ultimate right to rubbish them as mere fantasies.
I am basing my observations on three things. Let me warn my readers that two of them are imaginative and fictional. Let me explain the first incident. By now, most of you must have heard about the scientific thriller, which has bagged the seven Oscars for 2014 – Gravity. It is the story of a spacecraft orbiting the universe, experiences and encounters voyagers recounted with breathtaking visual effects. The film directed by Alonso Cuaron has grossed US$700 million so far – and is still ticking. Why it was a great box-office hit? The reasons are not far to seek. Mankind is always fascinated by space and extraterrestrial life. I read somewhere that 7,000 Canadians have already applied for their trip to Mars, which is estimated to take about 220 days from earth. Alas, a trip to moon will take only four days and I fail to understand why people are not showing that much interest in landing there. Is it because of the perception that it is too near to earth or its surface is uninhabitable?
Those who are interested in surfing the net to find out popular imaginations on the extraterrestrial habitation may come across with several sites and blogs, which pour out glorious imaginations.
Does it mean that mankind is closer to conquering Mars? I know people who have a scientific temper will gauge such assertions with scepticism. They always look for scientific explanations and rational theories to explain the veracity of such assertions. Hardly such things come out from hallowed scientific institutions. On the contrary, there will be often denials, sometimes on abstract terms or ignoring them, alluding that such assertions do not merit denials. I am not bothered about such happenings. What worries me is the sorry state of affairs in the NASA. All important projects on the outer space and extraterrestrial beings are put on hold presumably on account of the budget constraints. That had its negative impact. Curiosity is still continuing with its exploration and for the third time, it had upgraded its software system as latest as December 2013. Why such a huge time lag in exploration?
I will end up this column by invoking two real-life situations. One is a case study from the US and that too is relating to the auto sector. Henry Ford is known for revolutionizing the car manufacturing in the world and making it affordable to all classes of people. He is the person who introduced the conveyor belt system in auto manufacturing. That enabled the workers to remain stationary, while assembling a car with various parts. When the cars move through the conveyor belt, the assigned workers are asked to assemble the spare parts, which they are trained to put into the slot. That way, Ford managed to enhance production several times, reduce the cost of each car, making it affordable to the common man and increase the salaries of the workers handsomely. But it had a flip side, which was vehemently opposed by his arch rival and trade union leader, Walter Ruther. His argument was that such specializations will adversely affect the creativity of the workers, who will be trained only for a fraction of a work in the entire manufacturing chain. When bad times visited the automobile sector, predictions of Walter Ruther proved right since the redundant labour realized that their expertise did not go beyond a mechanical process of logging a part to the automobile.
What I am alluding is that to take advantage of the emerging opportunities, we have to specialize in all aspects of the information technology – software, hardware, innovation, messaging, adaptation, broadbanding – and what have you.
