Attending Nasscom India Leadership Forum 2010
Nasscom Night
Attending the Nasscom Leadership Forum 2010 was an interesting experience. The conference was well attended by decsions makers from across the globe – specially executives from USA and Europe. The venue (Grand Hyatt, Mumbai) was just that grand and the overall event management was good too. The food was great and so were the evening entertainment events.
I particularly enjoyed the inaugural speech by the CM of Mahrashtra – as he played the perfect salesman dedicating most of his speech to Mahrashtra being the state to do business in. The Nasscom team seemed very competent and the senior IT personalities played their part well in making the guests comfortable and in promoting Indian IT. My special thanks to Mr. Som Mittal, President of Nasscom in specially welcoming the Pakistani delegation to Mumbai. It was very heart warming and was followed by a a very warm round of applause by all the guests.
However, I was not too impressed by the discussions in the the sessions and workshops I attended. The ”wow” “game changing” factors were not there in the content – atleast not for me.
I also realized that despite the unbelievable, ”in your face” “on the sidewalk” “clearly unavoidable” poverty all over Mumbai, the global executives seemed comfortable being in India and transacting business in India.
I guess safety and consistency in business policy are the key motivators for global players to be in India (not to mention the availability of the talent pool).
Seems like the only (or the primary) hurdle we have to overcome at the moment is to make Pakistan a safe place for foreigners to come and conduct business.
I think we need to take drastic steps to at least immediately make the key cities 100% safe. Even if we have to cordon off and (electronically monitor or tag) every citizen coming in and out of Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad we should do this.
Yusuf – Not to mention poverty, how do you explain the fact that despite terrorists (not to mention the country of their origin which is another story in itself) having attacked two high profile hotels (Taj among them)and killed many westerners only a year ago, how come so many executives from West still visit India and that too a city that has come under so many attacks?
Logic would dictate that investors and visitors would flee such a country.
Your idea that people need to be tagged while visiting Pakistan is just preposterous and sounds quite desperate. It was a flippant remark. It is not so much about safety. It is our image in the west that is corroded. And tagging people is not the answer.
We need to make a genuine effort to change perceptions. And that is a tall order.
Making ourselves more attractive to the outsider is the key. Chaining them will not cut it however desperate we are.
I think that the west still views these attacks as a one off event (that too conducted by outsiders). As a result, most people still view India as a safe place (or at least a place where there aren’t declared groups of people (fundamentals) who are out to destroy foreigners).
Although I used the tagging example more to express the need for a functional solution (while we work at an ideological solution), I don’t think its that preposterous. Most people carrying a mobile phone are already tagged in a way. Most citizen’s driving a car equipped with a tracking devise are also tagged in a way. So the concept of individual is already compromised (and that too willingly).
We have done much more foolish things in the guise of “necessity,” the tagging or digital tracking of people (with a specific purpose – i.e., national security) may not be a bad solution!
Regarding changing perceptions, I believe that it is not all a marketing game – behind any perception changing hype has to be substance – and substance here means actual safety of citizens and our foreign guests.
I agree with you.
On another note, I spoke to friend of mine who visited town of Mysore for TED India last year. He said that South of India is more developed than North and has bigger IT industry.
ok, I’ll try and visit cities too soon – so I have more rounded experience. thanks
Yes south Indians are more developed and bigger.