In 2008-09, India as a nation and our corporate community withstood the impact of one of the world's worst economic crisis since World War II. We must credit the strong GDP growth and fiscal numbers of our nation as well as robust balance sheets of the domestic industry for helping navigate through such turbulent times.
Three years down the line, the situation has changed. Slow growth in the economy is accompanied by high fiscal deficit and inflation. Despite this, there are silver linings. Our exports are growing at a brisk pace and the basket of manufactured exports continues to diversify. Services sectors such as financial, educational and healthcare services continue to expand as well.
The question before us is this: Can the IT (information technology) industry apply its strengths and knowledge to help clients weather this slowdown and address the challenges and opportunities in front of them?
I firmly believe this is the time to be proactively working with the industry and the government. Our IT industry has a track record of success in this. We have introduced unique business models to the world, created new applications and exciting work opportunities for youth not only in India, but across nations. We now need to utilise our experiences and acquired strengths wisely.
Just to share a few examples:
1) The unique identification initiative (UID) is a great instance to begin with. It has laid the foundation not only for good governance, but for profitable business, too. Now, we need to create compelling IT-driven business models that our clients can take to governments to implement public-private partnerships.
2) Skills development is another area in which IT should take the lead to train and develop a strong pipeline of employable talent. The industry has a rich experience in training and needs to explore how this can be leveraged in other sectors.
3) Inclusive innovations, i.e. products, processes and business models bridging gaps between organised markets and low-income populations are becoming the hallmark of Indian manufacturing and services sector. IT has a tremendous role to play in helping entrepreneurs scale these solutions and their impact.
Addressing these business and national priorities will enable us to disrupt our existing business models and make these non-linear. Compulsions of scaling and financial viability will push companies to think differently - both in terms of talent deployment and the cost for acquiring such talent. Companies will have to engage talent outside the organisation and invest in its training. This will result in the optimisation of talent for the company, but, most important, will contribute to building a talent pipeline that can be leveraged to transform India into a high-performance nation. But, as the industry embarks on such a strategy, it will need to invest in the creation of a workforce ready to work in organisations where growth is characterised by non-linear business models (NLBMs).
The writer is chairman & managing director, Accenture, India. Views expressed are his own.
