On May 17th Danish Management Group went to a lecture at the IT University in Copenhagen, with the father of the Indian IT industry, Dr. F.C. Kohli from Tata Consultancy Services. Dr. Kohli holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from MIT and has more than 40 years of experience from the IT industry in India.

Brief on ICT history in India

According to Dr. Kohli, the use of computers started up in India in the early 1960ies. Digital technology applications and system development were predominantly spurred by the energy sector, and India's first software services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), was established as a division of Tata Sons in 1968. The establishment of the division was among others driven by the development of a large computer to monitor part of the electricity grid.

The prototype and installation of the computerized system was a success, and this success was crucial in order to build up local system-development confidence. Some of the early developments were bought by large enterprises in the US, but TCS stressed the need to also focus on the domestic market. However, due to government restrictions it could take from 2-4 years to import equipment from abroad. Thus it was necessary to develop equipment within the boundaries of India. Therefore, throughout the 1970ies, TCS focused on technology forecasts and experimentation.

In that sense, the national Indian import restrictions played an important role in the creation of an Indian IT innovation and development incentive. Another important aspect of the now globally competitive software- and system-development sector in India has been the setting up of joint ventures and Limited liability companies in the country, where foreign investors' shares would not exceed 40% - thus keeping the majority of the shares on national hands.

China as a Benchmark

The rapid development in China functions as an important benchmark to the IT industry and national development in contemporary India. In 1990, China had the same PC and telecom penetration as India, and a literacy rate which was app. 10 % higher. Today (2003 fig.), China has 5 times the PC penetration, 8-10 times the telecom penetration and China's rate of literacy is more than 20 times higher than that of India.

According to Dr. Kohli, the Chinese developments obviously have to do with several factors, but in the context of developing a national IT industry, one of the most important moves of the Chinese, has been to develop software for themselves - in their own languages, and aimed at important societal sectors: Education, Agriculture and (other) e-government services. However, according to Mr. Kohli, the Chinese have hardly exported any software, but (as in Japan) a very crucial driving force has been the huge exports of hardware and electronics to the rest of the global market. The revenues from hardware and electronics exports have contributed significantly, not only to the creation of a national Chinese IT industry, but likewise to the overall development in China.

Hence, Dr. Kohli stressed India's need to focus more on the potentials of hardware development and embedded software in own (and foreign) languages in order to live up to the China benchmark.

The Domestic Indian IT Market

According to Mr. Kohli, India needs - to a much larger degree than now - to strengthen its focus on the domestic market and start using computers for its own people. He explicates that the level of computerization is still low in India, the literacy level is too low and "even though Europeans think that most Indians master perfect English, it is only approximately 6-7% of the population who speak it at a ‘near native' level." Furthermore, computers are way too expensive for the ordinary Indian to acquire.

Thus, what India needs to do ‘at home' according to Mr. Kohli, is to focus more on Research and Development (R&D) in embedded software and local production of cheap computers which can be acquired for less than $200. "We will assemble in smaller units. If a locality needs 25000 PCs a year, we will build a plant there which can do that." The past 6-8 months TCS has worked on Open Source Software (especially Linux) and according to Mr. Kohli, India will in the next two years time have enough software available (in 14-18 local languages) to bring the computers into the hands of the general population.

However, Mr. Kohli underlines that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to boost the progress on the domestic market and in order to avoid duplication of efforts.

Focus on the People

Today TCS has more than 10,000 qualified staff. However, in order to meet the China benchmark, plans are already in place at the Indian Institute for Technology (ITT) for the ‘production and design' of 3000 ‘homegrown' micro electronic engineers over the next three years. TCS has among others supported ITT with advice, funding and cutting edge IT laboratory equipment.

The fact that many educated Indians speak and think in English has been crucial for the development and expansion of the Indian IT sector. However, an equally important aspect is that of quality, human resources and process thinking. Dr. Kohli stresses that India is the first country in the world to reach level 5 of a framework denominated as the PCMM framework. The PCMM (People Capability Maturity Model) defines the organizational maturity of people processes and practices on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. Thus, according to Mr. Kohli, what is of utmost importance is the development of quality and organizational capacity and the realization that all software is ‘a people process'.

Additionally, Dr. Kohli underlines, that the future Indian IT industry will only attract the best people if it is going to provide them with an environment that facilitates learning and personal knowledge building. "If they [staff] do it for themselves it's for the organization too. Basically they will judge whether the organization is going to give them the tools, the facility and the environment to build themselves up." Otherwise brain drain will continue to be a large threat within the sector, where professionals leave the country for better opportunities elsewhere.

Challenges to Indian Software Development

According to Mr. Kohli, some of the central questions to ask within Indian software engineering today are: "How to deal with systems that our clients will need in the future? - their complexity, distributedness and uncertainties - and how to reduce the rework on already available software?" Mr. Kohli sees two basic problems in software engineering and development. 1) Difficulties mainly arise because programmers are not clear on the client/end-user requirements, and 2) There is a great challenge in the reuse of already developed software (35% of software developments are in the spheres of reuse).

Dr. Kohli advises the Indian IT sector to focus on bottom-up approaches in software development, where local requirements and needs specifications are taken serious. Furthermore, there is good reason in parallel processing, where different lines of development/production happen simultaneously and in cooperation. According to Mr. Kohli, the focus on prototyping and testing should be strengthened to the benefit of the sector and - obviously! - to the benefit of the users.

Thus, what India sets out to do in the near future, is to produce enough people to facilitate a strengthened focus on hardware production and embedded software, software developed to meet national and international demands, and a sustained emphasis on needs identification, design, prototyping and tests.

- See e.g. also the recent Danish initiative: Centre for Euro/Indian ICT research at CBS: http://euroindia.cbs.dk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=66

- Back ground footage from Computer Chronicles: http://www.archive.org/details/india_2

- Or a national comment from another point of view on the brain drain issues: http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/12-24g-04.asp