Nasscom 2000@India Tryst with Digital Destiny

All

roads lead to Rome, They say.



From 2-5 February, all roads in the commercial capital of India
(read Mumbai) led to the 2 lakh square metre wide area behind

the World Trade Centre–the venue for N
asscom

2000@-India. The arid land behind the most well known landmark

in the city was transformed in a matter of few days to a spot

where the big tags in the Indian IT industry and a slew of new

kids on the block showcased their wares and new technologies

taking the world by storm today. Equally frenzied was the

ambience in the Oberoi hotel with more than 800 delegates

turning an ear to the prophets of boom.

The exhibition venue

housed around 100 plus exhibitors with one pavilion dedicated to

dot.com companies. Notable among them were Cyber Astro and

ITmall.com. According to official figures, more than one lakh

people visited the venue spread over four days.

The New Ethics



"Creating wealth is no crime," proclaimed Pramod
Mahajan, union minister for IT, referring to the theme of expo,

"Creating Wealth in a Digital Economy". Inaugurating

the event, he assured the industry of various sops to fuel the

growth of IT in India and to do away with red tape. Pointing out

the various initiatives undertaken by the government to make IT

as a growth engine for the overall economic development, he

said, "We need to take IT from classes to masses. We do not

need knowledge islands." Vilas Rao Deshmumkh, chief

minister of Maharashtra, emphasized the efforts being taken by

his government to expand the IT infrastructure in the state and

develop towns like Aurangabad and Nagpur into IT hubs.

However,

it was Gururaj Deshpande, founder and chairman of Sycamore

Networks Inc., who hogged the limelight. People thronged to

listen to one of the most successful Indians in corporate

America and his valuable tips on how to succeed in a network

economy. "A new revolution is unfolding before our eyes.

India missed the industrial revolution. But we cannot afford to

miss the bus this time. Simply because speed is the essence

here," said Deshpande. He laid special thrust on the need

for world-class telecom infrastructure and ability to compete in

global markets as the key to make most of the Net revolution.

He went on to add that the

roots of the current revolution lies in how IT has moved from

backroom to the front desk in the last 20 years. He described

the metamorphosis of IT from being an internal tool to make an

organization more efficient, to a tool that connects consumers

with producers of services and products. "In other words, a

fundamental shift and a very different role for IT, from being

just an MIS tool to a tool to restructure the economy by

influencing every segment of the industry through Internet and

e-commerce. An influence, which through the free flow and

instant access to information, will empower the consumer to

gather all the information he needs and set the agenda for the

producers for what he needs. The same flow of information will

also allow companies to promote the efficient and profit making

parts of their businesses rather than the inefficient

ones."Deshpande pointed out the

need for a strong conviction to participate in this revolution.

"Individuals will need to be entrepreneurial. They need to

have strong convictions–no matter whether they fail or make it

big. Keeping the optimism alive is the basic tenet of success in

this business," he added.

In the same breath, the

richest Indian living abroad cautioned that strong conviction is

not enough. He talked about the need to think big as no one can

survive by thinking small in a global economy. And to be able to

think big and global, one needs to surround oneself with

excellent, talented, and skilled workforce. It is essential to

have a world-class team to become a worldclass player.

"Speed is the key. Another issue is transparency.

Transparency here would mean clarity of vision of the

organization and goals and a clear understanding of the

competition."

But conviction and a

world-class team cannot survive without a good environment.

According to Deshpande, a suitable environment is one that

promotes risk through venture capital, and offers suitable

physical infrastructure such as power and telecom to work in.

One also needs rules that are simple and a government that plays

the role of a referee and not the one who decides the winner and

losers of the game. "In other words, a suitable exit policy

to exit and reinvent themselves," he concluded.

Looking Ahead



Other eminent speakers who talked about various aspects of IT at
N
asscom included Montek Singh Ahluvalia, member of

Planning Commission, Amitabh Kumar of VSNL, Dr Krishna Palepu,

Harvard Business School, and Dr Ian Pearson, futurologist, BT

Labs.

Dewang Mehta, Nasscom

president, revealed that he had received more than 1,000

business plans to new start-ups and at least 50 of them would go

on stream in the months to come. He added that venture capital

inflows into the country had grown by over 100 percent from the

previous years to reach Rs 1,400 crore in 1999. This is expected

to increase further by 120 percent to touch Rs 3,200 crore by

the end of current fiscal. Based on these projections, Nasscom

envisages India attracting annual investments to the tune of $10

billion by 2008 and being among the top five locations for the

creation of technology ventures. Nasscom has also been

commissioned to draft IT action plan for Maharshtra following

senior leaders from BJP and Indian National Congress reaching a

broad consensus on IT industry issues.

The New Spirit



To facilitate wealth generation and to promote the spirit of
entrepreneurship
in the country, special venture capital

clinics were conducted at Nasscom 2000 where advice and

monitoring was provided to budding entrepreneurs by leading

venture capitalists including Kanwal Rekhi, president, TiE. In

addition, the conference had panel discussions on key areas

relevant to Indian entrepreneurship such as "Challenges for

Spider (dotcom) Companies" with participation from leading

industry spokespersons including Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief,

Red Herring magazine, and Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO, Rediff.com.

Recent

initiatives of the Indian government such as permitting venture

capital funds to invest in the country on the same terms as

foreign investors and permitting them to invest more than 40

percent of their paid-up capital in a single company have given

a fillip to the process of promoting and funding

entrepreneurship in India. However, Nasscom felt the need for

outlining steps from the government to further encourage the

growth of venture capital funds.

Nasscom also plans to set

up an entrepreneurial club to provide seed capital to Internet

start-ups and help connect people with venture capitalists and

angel investors. It aims to play the role of a catalyst spurring

the creation of wealth and 50 new start-up companies are

expected to be launched in key growth areas such as value-added

IT services, IT enabled services, and software products.

With the next Nasscom show

scheduled to be held in New York in September this year, this

apex body of Indian software companies seems to be all set to

play anchor role in integrating Indian software industry into

global economy and putting India on the world IT map.