This was in the news last week: technology product companies are coming of age in India. I was just wondering, we have been a software services powerhouse for quite some time and Bangalore is even known as India’s Silicon Valley. Hell, I even worked in one of the World’s largest software services company for almost 8 years. But how come, we don’t have a lot of technology product companies that are famous enough to be recognized worldwide? I then took up a stab at this and came up with the following:
The first and most obvious answer has to do with talent. While we have some of the best and brightest engineers all right, most of them would rather work at a large software services provider than work at a small unknown product startup. As if hiring wasn’t difficult enough already, the typical Indian mentality is to progress up to a non-technical path very quickly. After all, if I as a software programmer ever told my to-be in-laws that 10 years into my job, I am still into software programming and working for an unknown product startup, then it would simply be a matter of shock to them. After all wasn’t I good enough to become an account manager or delivery manager at a TCS, Infosys or Wipro by then, or at least a project manager at one of these companies perhaps?
Having experienced and great software programmers in your technology product company is extremely critical to building good products. While not everyone has to be a superstar, you have to have the right mix of them. Product companies also have a very strong engineering led approach that is missing in most service companies that typical have a very strong marketing driven approach.
Secondly, we never quite had the Steve Jobs, the Bill Gates and the Larry Elisions. These visionaries were extremely important in the advocacy that was required for a market to be created. The software services industry on the other hand had people such as a Narayana Murthy and a FC Kohli.
Thirdly, Indians also exhibit another typical behavior. We are more to do with think small and then scale up. We are true conformists to tradition. So therefore most of us have never been trained to think disruptively. This is essential to building a successful global products company and Zoho has done this so well with their SaaS strategy which they did much before Google and Microsoft could launch their office products online.
Fourthly, regulation and infrastructure has still catching up to do. A 512 Kbps Internet bandwidth connection is still un-available in some of India’s tier 2 and 3 cities and even if it is, it is either not extremely affordable or reliable. On the telephony front, regulations have been a constant inhibitor to inhibition. Coming from a customer services solutioning standpoint, these 2 stand out to me first: 3G is yet to take off on a serious note and VoIP calling to telephones are still a strict no-no.
However for people who understand all this, India clearly has the cost advantage. Much lesser capital is required to launch a product startup today in India than in most other developed countries. Also if you are launching a product company in India that Is specific to Indian requirements only, which is actually a great idea to pursue given that the Indian economy is doing better than any other developed countries currently, then you need to make the markets work for you in India by adding localization to your products.
Visionaries are a product of the environment and not of a culture. While they have a huge role to play in innovation, what India lacks is management talent and the desire to mentor. Until there is a clear understanding of what the responsibility of a good manager really is, India will sadly be putting coals into someone else's gleaming engine.
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