End users not convinced of Indian IT excellence

Bangalore, Sep 6: Strides made by the IT industry in India needed to take a new platform as customers abroad were yet to be convinced of the 'quality of delivery' achieved by the industry, NASSCOM Chairman Lakshmi Narayanan said today.

Speaking at 'NASSCOM Quality Summit-2007' here, he said that his experience had shown that the end users of services of Indian IT companies in the West were not as impressed as those companies in India. There was an urgent need to get to the next level 'the quality of output of the Indian IT industry', he said.

''When you talk to foreign consumers about our IT services, I had felt that their perspective of Indian IT sector's excellence was different than those of Indian customers,'' he opined.

Mr Narayanan, who is the Vice-Chairman-Board of Directors, Cognizant Technologies, said though the IT industry had achieved a comfortable level of quality in processes or products, the quality within was something it had only started to learn, he opined.

He said the industry should move from quality deliverable to quality of outcome. Focus on quality would deliver superior customer experience in all aspects of products and services.

''For this you should have a different mind set. We have to look at this in an innovative way. Excellence is no longer a goal but it has become a standard today,'' he added.

NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik said innovation was the exact way of gaining excellence in quality and the IT industry should focus on creativity than continuing with the replicable processes that were repeatable. He advocated practice of structured creativity that could be channelised and not chaotic. The industry had to move on in two fronts - quality and innovation. The 'glitches' faced by the industry while achieving highest quality was made by its own, he added.

''We have to recognise the creativity of the collective. 'Chalta hai' attitude has afflicted even the IT industry and it should be eliminated forthwith. We have to create a new generation of people who are high on quality consciousness not only in their work but on everything they do in life,'' he added.

Phillips Innovation Campus CEO Alexius Collete said there was a need to stimulate the youth in the industry. ''There is a huge young talent in India which is better than the people attending this summit. Quality can be achieved if we niche this power. We should use the power of the youth who do it in their own way and do not like to be commanded or controlled. They show lot of responsibility and can ensure productivity of better quality and customer satisfaction,'' he added.

UNI