For Indians who have access to western education and possess english speaking skills, times couldn’t have been better. A generation ago, no one could have imagined the plethora of job options available today – IT, BPO, media, finance, insurance. Even traditional professions like journalism provide many more opportunities than they did a couple of decades ago. Economic upliftment can be seen clearly in most parts of urban India. Perhaps, the concept of middle class values is changing. Urban middle class people are coming out of the older “scarcity mentality”. Materialism is no longer a dirty word. Whether this is good or bad, or whether the benefits should be more broad-based is the subject of different discussion. But assuming that this is indeed a good thing, what are we doing to maximize the gains ? India is being seen as the “service” destination, much in the same way China has been the world’s manufacturing destination. Can this be our Great Chance to become a first world nation ? Here’s a SWOT analysis:
Strength:
Service, defined Business processes and knowledge management suits well with the Indian temperament. We wrote treatises on various kinds of wisdom long before people in many parts of the world stopped wearing goat-skin for clothes. Knowledge management has been around here for a long time. Indians have never been renowned for military prowess. We never invaded foreign countries or made colonies abroad (OK, Tibbet campaigns of Mohd Bin Tughlaq or Ranjit Singh don’t count). This just hasn’t been our strength. Our skills have been on the “soft” side like service and knowledge management. Hence the current role India is taking upon is a well-suited one. This is our natural strength. It’s not a coincidence that India is nowhere in the computer hardware industry but has become a powerhouse in the software industry. It doesn’t mean we can’t become a hardware power, just that it hasn’t come to us naturally. Following processes