NASSCOM Hosts 15th India Leadership Forum 2007
by Paul Catiang

From February 7 to 9, 2007, CEOs and company presidents and other leaders of the IT and ITES industry in India and from Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, Malaysia, Mauritius, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Turkey and the United States flocked to Mumbai for NASSCOM’s 15th India Leadership Forum 2007. The leadership conference is one of the most prestigious gatherings of international ICT companies, customer organizations, analysts, business intelligence firms, and global investors.

As a leading country in the IT and ITES industries, particularly in the realm of outsourcing, India sets the trends in terms of leadership, global sourcing, and innovation. At NASSCOM’s India Leadership Forum, the leaders in these industries gather to compare strategies and project future developments to maintain its robust growth. The attendees of this event come from a diverse range of executives, consultants and government officials from a cross-section of industries.

This year, NASSCOM’s India Leadership Forum focused issues concerning leadership, globalization, innovation and manpower resource development, all of which will play an instrumental role in extending India’s edge in the global markets.

Sessions and conference tracks included tackled issues concerning the evolution of the industry, trends in global sourcing, and other relevant topics.

The Next Generation IT Company delved into how IT and ITES companies will need to adapt to the fast-changing and dynamic global business environment. This track included discussions on emerging innovative business models and the rapid globalization of Indian IT mega-corporations, analysis of the global venture capital industry’s renewed interest in Indian IT and BPO ventures, with highlights on how the industry is maturing and consolidating as its Next Generation IT companies make a bid for global leadership.

The multi-vendor, global sourcing model has been challenging service providers to seek out new ways of engaging their customers. Global Sourcing Through 2010 discussed the trends in global sourcing and how it will continuously build up over the next few years, prompting the emergence of more near-shore operations and captive offshore units in other low-cost locations. The resulting global workforce will ideally deliver a higher value to clients. This conference track also focused on the challenges involved in the multi-vendor, global sourcing model and what Indian companies are doing to help reduce and manage these risks.

The role of Research and Development steadily increases in importance as India rides the wave of innovation, especially in the sub-sector of outsourced engineering, where global organizations are outsourcing their most crucial functions to the country’s BPO companies. India is rapidly developing competencies that will make it a hot spot for verticals like automotives, manufacturing, high technology and aerospace engineering. Outsourcing Engineering and Innovation to India is a track that provided insights on the country’s growing prowess in the area and how vendors are building capabilities and best practices in this highest end of the services spectrum. The conference track showcased the viability of outsourcing R&D, product development, and engineering services to Indian vendors. Also discussed were India’s domain knowledge and its ready pool of competent talent for this type of outsourcing work.

India gives rise to the issue of developing key differentiators for the country, and this is encouraging the development of an economic ecosystem conducive to the growth of the industry. IT Innovation in India is a conference track that discussed out-of-the-box services and innovative business models that range from billion-dollar corporations to small and medium enterprises that have managed to compete with their larger contemporaries.

All in all, NASSCOM’s India Leadership Forum—for this year as it has in the past—has given the IT and ITES sectors a golden opportunity to discuss their concerns and issues, compare techniques and form alliances and networks as the industry prepares for yet another year of growth.