batterinram Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Adding to my previous post, IITs were the single > most important factor in transforming India’s > economy from an agrarian one to something that was > driven by IT services. People who passed out of > IITs started companies (some of them are billion > dollar companies) in India and in silicon valley. > They created wealth and employment and transformed > an economy. Yes they did not win nobel prizes, but > made a difference to lives of people, which I > think is just as impressive. This is only partially true. Most of the IT Companies and it’s work force are represented by non-IIT and non-IIM alumni. TCS would have existed without IITs, so would have Wipro, Satyam and a host of other companies. Infosys had 2 of it’s founders from IIT but the rest (4) were non-IITians. Indian IT services exists because of availability of a large number low-pay, low experience, computer savvy workers, who are willing to toil away their days and nights.
batterinram Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Adding to my previous post, IITs were the single > most important factor in transforming India’s > economy from an agrarian one to something that was > driven by IT services. People who passed out of > IITs started companies (some of them are billion > dollar companies) in India and in silicon valley. > They created wealth and employment and transformed > an economy. Yes they did not win nobel prizes, but > made a difference to lives of people, which I > think is just as impressive. This is only partially true. Most of the IT Companies and it’s work force are represented by non-IIT and non-IIM alumni. TCS would have existed without IITs, so would have Wipro, Satyam and a host of other companies. Infosys had 2 of it’s founders from IIT but the rest (4) were non-IITians. Indian IT services exists because of availability of a large number low-pay, low experience, computer savvy workers, who are willing to toil away their days and nights.
CareerChange Wrote: Indian IT services exists because of availability of a large number low-pay, low experience, computer savvy workers, who are willing to toil away their days and nights. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes this is true now. In the mid 80s and early 90s when the IT industry was much smaller the IT firms recruited mainly from the IITs and RECs 1. Because of the low numbers required they could afford to be more selective 2. There were very few quality engineering colleges. The initial phase of outsourcing was critical as Indian companies needed to prove that they can do quality work in order to get more business from the foreign companies. The IITians who were working for the IT companies played an important role in achieving this and helped in the growth of the Industry. As the IT industry grew a number of colleges came up and produced computer savy workers that you talked about. Without the quality of engineers IIT produced and the work they did initially the industry wouldnt have grown. I still stick to my statement that the IITs were the single most important factor for India’s IT boom. Pls note: I did not go to anyy IIT (was not good enough)
batterinram Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- >…I still > stick to my statement that the IITs were the > single most important factor for India’s IT boom. Plus rohufish leaving India - the general morale and self esteem of the country went up 
lol. nice, atlanta.
> batterinram Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > >…I still > > stick to my statement that the IITs were the > > single most important factor for India’s IT > boom. The single most important factor was that in 1991, PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh started liberalizing the economy. Nothing else comes even close as the single most important factor for India’s IT (or non-IT) boom.
CareerChange Wrote: The single most important factor was that in 1991, PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh started liberalizing the economy. Nothing else comes even close as the single most important factor for India’s IT (or non-IT) boom ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Infosys, TCS etc started their operations way before the liberalization. Without quality engineers and companies who do you think would have outsourced IT work to India just because they liberalized. . Liberalization helped but without quality engineers and companies there would not have been any IT boom.
Most of the IIT engineers in the 70s and 80s were mainly based in silicon valley/route 495 or academia pursuing their own careers.It is a stretch to credit them with the rise of the IT boom of late 90s-2000s. The IT boom was clearly because of lack of govt interference (due to ignorance rather than not trying) accompanied by a simultaneous boom in the number of private engineering colleges in India -especially south India - and guess where the epicentre of the boom is situated? If IITs were responsible for the IT boom it would have happened way earlier. IT outsourcing/offshoring was made possible on a massive scale, especially by the availability of cheap bandwidth once the telecom bandwidth glut of the internet boom (MCI/Global crossing/Tyco) played itself out. and ofcourse the advent of VoIp and cheaper switching technologies. Initially there were more IIT/REC folks at IT shops -essentially those waiting to earn a littl pocket money while their F1 visas arrived. Now with the general boom in colleges ,more people get recruited . Lack of quality is overhyped. IT is not rocket science and all you need (in general) are hard working people ready to learn new stuff.-and these attributes are no preserves of IIT/RECs.
batterinram Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > CareerChange Wrote: > The single most important factor was that in 1991, > PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh started > liberalizing the economy. Nothing else comes even > close as the single most important factor for > India’s IT (or non-IT) boom > -------------------------------------------------- > -------------------------------------------------- > ------------ > > Infosys, TCS etc started their operations way > before the liberalization. Without quality > engineers and companies who do you think would > have outsourced IT work to India just because they > liberalized. . Liberalization helped but without > quality engineers and companies there would not > have been any IT boom. We’ll have to agree to disagree. I honestly don’t see that India has received a good enough RoI on investments in IIT/IIM. Brain Drain was a big problem in late 60s to early 90s. Most of the IITians left the country for better returns (I won’t fault them). To attribute India’s IT success to them is highly misleading. Nandan/NRN, clearly attribute their success to the liberalization and I am sure so would Azim Premji and Ramadorai/Rata Tata. I am yet to see an ackowledgement from them which would attribute India’s success to primarily IIT or IIM. IIT/IIM have capitalized on the change rather than being the instrument of change. I work in an large Indian IT services firm and I don’t believe the quality of the work force is a great differentiator. It’s mostly the quantity which is making a difference.
I agree @the ROI part. The Indian govt should stop subsidising the IITs -in fact all of higher education should be privatized. What business do a few babus in delhi have deciding how to fund higher education?. Why should the taxes paid by my maid fund the education of someone who has no incentive to return (other than probable emotional attachment).?. Not blaming the IITians -they are just making use of a system which is unfair to begin with.
Dsylexic Wrote: Most of the IIT engineers in the 70s and 80s were mainly based in silicon valley/route 495 or academia pursuing their own careers.It is a stretch to credit them with the rise of the IT boom of late 90s-2000s. The IT boom was clearly because of lack of govt interference (due to ignorance rather than not trying) accompanied by a simultaneous boom in the number of private engineering colleges in India -especially south India - and guess where the epicentre of the boom is situated? If IITs were responsible for the IT boom it would have happened way earlier. IT outsourcing/offshoring was made possible on a massive scale, especially by the availability of cheap bandwidth once the telecom bandwidth glut of the internet boom (MCI/Global crossing/Tyco) played itself out. and ofcourse the advent of VoIp and cheaper switching technologies. Initially there were more IIT/REC folks at IT shops -essentially those waiting to earn a littl pocket money while their F1 visas arrived. Now with the general boom in colleges ,more people get recruited . Lack of quality is overhyped. IT is not rocket science and all you need (in general) are hard working people ready to learn new stuff.-and these attributes are no preserves of IIT/RECs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Other countries had open economies and cheap labor why didnt the western companies outsource work to those countries? 2. Why do you think so much of ER work is outsourced to India today? It is because a lot of Wall st Firms have Indians in management positions who are driving this. Similarly all the IITians you talked about who worked in Silicon valley in 80s and 90s played a direct or indirect role (through brand building) in outsourcing work to India. It didnt happen earlier because nobody in the US had a clue about India before these guys went there and proved themselves. 3. The bandwith, colleges etc came because of the demand for Indian IT services. In other words demand came first then the supply not the other way round. We can go on and on about this but at the end of the day as Careerchange said we will have to agree to disagree
naah@Wallst firms having Indians.so why arent the east europeans on wall st leading offshoring work into east europe. well there simply isnt scale in east europe. thats the difference. they are easily more east europeans on wall st than indians. " Other countries had open economies and cheap labor why didnt the western companies outsource work to those countries? " exactly -why not?. because the rest dont have the scale. agree with the assessment of colleges mushrooming - they both feed off each other. The IT firms existed before the boom. (i hope the debate is about the boom period ) but they were essentially body shops - as pejoratively termed by (probably jealous) lowly paid business reporters from India- . when the telecom bandwidth glut and Y2K happened, the jobs started moving in instead of bodies moving out.
Dsylexic Wrote: naah@Wallst firms having Indians.so why arent the east europeans on wall st leading offshoring work into east europe. well there simply isnt scale in east europe. thats the difference. they are easily more east europeans on wall st than indians. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is non-trivial amount of outsourcing to Eastern Europe. In fact one of the KPOs I worked for opened or acquired a company in Poland to do outsourced ER work. I have worked in quite a few KPOs (yeah I change jobs quite often) both captive and third party. Invariably the guy who was in charge (from the client side) of outsourcing work to India was an Indian or the process was started through an Indian contact. The guys who started companies like Irevna, Amba etc worked as analysts/consultants in Europe and US and got work to India through their contacts. Only after companies like Irevna, Evalue etc proved that ER can be outsourced did the captives like HSBC , GS set up their operations in India. Indians held some important positions in some of BB firms or had contacts in those firms because of their prior work ex and this was instrumental in outsourcing of ER to India. Scale did play an important role, but India always had scale so why only after 2002 did ER outsourcing take off?
Why so? I am interested to know what’s special about 2002. Regarding BPO/KPO, I guess everyone just figured that if IT can be outsourced (Y2k boom) so can a host of other stuff. I hope you are not claiming that the BPO story is due to some IIT/IIMians proving to the world that Indians can put on fake accents and names and work the graveyard shift to provide service to clients half-way across the world.
CareerChange Wrote: Why so? I am interested to know what’s special about 2002. Regarding BPO/KPO, I guess everyone just figured that if IT can be outsourced (Y2k boom) so can a host of other stuff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No you guessed wrong. Everyone figured out ER can be outsourced? Do you think some IBanker sitting in NY or London got up one day and thought “oh India has a lot of engineers, so they must have tons of finance garduates lets outsource ER and IB work to India” It didnt happen that way. Why 2002? In 1999 or 2000 Mckinsey came out with a report listing 15 jobs that are most likely to be outsourced and guess what ER was not one of them. An Indian guy who worked in Mckinsey Europe didnt see it that way. He started a KPO in India and using his contacts in Europe got some ER work to India. Indians working in other IBs had similar ideas. Around 2001-2002 there were 3-4 KPOs doing third party ER work. Once these guys showed ER can be outsourced to India, companies like HSBC, GS, Fidelity etc started their captive units in India. Without those third party KPOs, none of the biggies would have started their operations in India because 1. They had no idea India had so may eemployable finance grads 2. IP was a serious concern. The IITians who worked in silicon valley played a similar role in a different way. They built a brand and showed India had quality engineers. Without them no one in the US would have had any idea about Indian engineers and they would not have taken any chances by outsourcing to a country thousands of miles away. Now coming to BPOs. Who do you think was instrumental in setting up GE’s call center (probably the first not sure) in India? Surprise Surprise it was Pramod Bhasin, a guy who passed out from IIMA. I can give you names of KPOs and the key person driving the outsourcing initiatives in these companies. Although I wont do this on a public forum. Open your eyes and look around you. You might change your opinion about IITs. Yes they are not the best, their research dept sucks. However you cannot deny the impact they have had on the Indian economy.
BullPow Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The thing is acceptance is low…lots of > competition to get in, mostly because of few seats > and huge population…only the cream of the crop > gets in… > > Once you get into an IIT or an IIM…I dont think > there is a huge difference between the said > western schools and these Indian schools interms > of the education imparted to students… I agree with BullPow that IITs and IIMs are very tough to get into. There is no passing rate; they have a fixed number of seats and most of competent students, including most income levels and background, try their best for these. So, IIT and IIM students are as smart as students at any of the top universities in the world, but IIT (not sure about IIM, but the same things may apply) itself does not add any superior value to the IITians. I would dare to say that most of the professors at IIT are inferior to those at top universities in US. In short, IITians and IIM folks may be very intelligent, but their institutions does not add value to a level that can be even compared to those added at Harvard or Stanford. As for contributions, IIT did/does help with selling of Indian IT/engineering manpower. I have met my fair share of Indians who complain about IITians with gusto; most of them failed to make it to IITs. They want to privatize IIT and talk about brain drain. In this global economy, I think IIT has done a lot more from outside India than they could have done by being in India. I just do not understand the privatizing of IIT argument. There are hundreds of private engineering colleges in India. Again, most of these folks are “Sour grapes” kind.
Dsylexic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Most of the IIT engineers in the 70s and 80s were > mainly based in silicon valley/route 495 or > academia pursuing their own careers.It is a > stretch to credit them with the rise of the IT > boom of late 90s-2000s. > > The IT boom was clearly because of lack of govt > interference (due to ignorance rather than not > trying) accompanied by a simultaneous boom in the > number of private engineering colleges in India > -especially south India - and guess where the > epicentre of the boom is situated? > If IITs were responsible for the IT boom it would > have happened way earlier. IT > outsourcing/offshoring was made possible on a > massive scale, especially by the availability of > cheap bandwidth once the telecom bandwidth glut > of the internet boom (MCI/Global crossing/Tyco) > played itself out. and ofcourse the advent of > VoIp and cheaper switching technologies. > > Initially there were more IIT/REC folks at IT > shops -essentially those waiting to earn a littl > pocket money while their F1 visas arrived. Now > with the general boom in colleges ,more people get > recruited . Lack of quality is overhyped. IT is > not rocket science and all you need (in general) > are hard working people ready to learn new > stuff.-and these attributes are no preserves of > IIT/RECs. Indian IT should pray to the God of bits/bytes. Y2K problem combined with earlier opening of Indian economy by Rajiv Gandhi and helped by a good impression created by engineers (a lot of them IITians) in US helped fuel Indian IT.
IT industry today in India is a direct product of IITs and IISc. TCS and Infosys and the likes used to hire exclusively from IITs and IISc, twenty years ago. Infact TCS/Infosys was a hub for IIT folks… As the industry exploded, they relaxed their hiring standards and now it is a open for all club.
cfa_mba_caia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > IT industry today in India is a direct product of > IITs and IISc. > > TCS and Infosys and the likes used to hire > exclusively from IITs and IISc, twenty years ago. > > Infact TCS/Infosys was a hub for IIT folks… As > the industry exploded, they relaxed their hiring > standards and now it is a open for all club. I have worked at Infosys for more than a decade and this statement is not true. Do you have any data to prove this to be true?
"naah@Wallst firms having Indians.so why arent the east europeans on wall st leading offshoring work into east europe. well there simply isnt scale in east europe. thats the difference. they are easily more east europeans on wall st than indians. " You have got to be kidding me. There are far more Indians or Chinese on Wall St. than East Europeans.