Dear All, BOP being the thrust of the ICT strategy; I thought I should share the piece below for all to reflect on the meeting. One very interesting statistic is that Bangalore has 20,000 more IT Engineers than Silicon Valley! Enjoy. Harry +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Outsourcing to India? Special from the Pro Hawaii Newsletter and Flight Capital By David Heenan, 1/22/2006 11:12:11 PM The following is an excerpt from the book Flight Capital by David Heenan Shifting U.S. jobs overseas remains an emotional hot button. In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry chastised "Benedict Arnold CEOs," who favored foreign over American employees. Then-secretary of state Colin Powell, dispatched by President Bush to New Delhi, countered by saying that outsourcing was "a reality of the twenty-first century" but that India should do more to offset the loss of U.S. jobs by opening its market to American goods. But don't dismiss the gains in productivity and competitiveness to U.S. business and the jobs that are created as a result of outsourcing. The rule of thumb is that each Indian employee represents an annual savings to American employers of $20,000 to $30,000. The cost of transmitting work offshore is expected to plummet by as much as 60 percent in 2005 thanks to new undersea cables. While such savings are a big draw, quality of work is a close second -- and gaining in importance. The skills of India's computer scientists, for example, are unsurpassed. The Capability Maturity Model, or CMM, developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, has been used to evaluate the software development processes of hundreds of companies. Software teams receive a rating of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. A decade ago, only Motorola's unit in Bangalore achieved a 5 rating. Today, 387 Indian companies are so accredited. Therefore, multinational enterprises are getting more complex work done on the subcontinent -- not just in IT but in fields ranging from financial services to biotechnology. Clearly, corporate America can no longer be lulled into thinking it is immune to Indian competition. "The globalization of white-collar services has become mainstream," says Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, India's IBM. The country's unforeseen leap into the top ranks of global technology refuted conventional development theory, which predicted that India and other poor countries would follow the same long, slow path Western industrial nations had followed -- from agriculture to manufacturing to high technology. India's development shortcut made it the first Third World nation to use its brain- power, not natural resources or low-wage labor, to propel its entry into the economic big leagues. "Every company aspiring to be global has to have an Indian strategy," says Nilekani. This does not mean the United States will repeat the fall of the Roman Empire. "Offshoring is not a zero-sum game," says Diana Farrell, director of the think tank McKinsey Global Institute. "It creates value for individual American companies and frees U.S. resources for activities with more value added." Infosys's Nilekani agrees: By working together, both India and the United States win. "You have this whole ecosystem [that constitutes] a crucible for innovation," he told the New York Times. "The whole process where people get an idea and put together a team, raise capital, create a product, and mainstream it -- that can only be done in the U.S. It can't be done sitting in India. The Indian part of the equation [is to help] these innovative [U.S.] companies bring their products to market quicker, cheaper, and better, which increases the innovative cycle there. It is a complementarity we need to enhance." While Americans fret over Third World competition, half a world away in Bangalore engineers are hard at work writing software for the latest telephones, designing next-generation microprocessors, and developing wireless broadband technology that they hope will transform homes around the world. By some estimates, there are more IT engineers in Bangalore (150,000), India's self-proclaimed Silicon Valley, than in its California counterpart (130,000). In this southern city once known as "pensioners' paradise" for its mild weather and slow pace, you'll find the landscape blazoned with famous corporate logos: GE, Intel, Cisco, IBM, Philips, AOL. More than half the U.S. Fortune 500, as well as leading European, Japanese, Chinese, even Pakistani companies, have a significant presence here -- all using Indian brainpower. David Heenan is a leading expert on globalization and author of Flight Capital: The Alarming Exodus of America's Best and Brightest (Davies-Black, $24.95). His career in business and academia has taken him from Citigroup and Jardine Matheson to the B-schools at Wharton and Columbia. Today he serves as a trustee for the Estate of James Campbell, one of the nation's largest landowners with assets of more than $2 billion. Contact him at http://www.flight-capital.com The Pro Hawaii Newsletter is distributed monthly to over 1,000 Hawaii businesses and their staffs as well as globally to empowered consumers and professionals. See more at http://www.ProHawaii.com Copyright © 2005 David Heenan. Reprinted with permission Guest Editorials... Email To a Friend -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+harry=aitecafrica.com@kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=aitecafrica.com@kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Brian Longwe Sent: 24 January 2006 16:12 To: harry@aitecafrica.com Subject: Re: [Kictanet] Workshop to discuss ICT Strategy Paper Hi Wainaina, Thanks for this input. I would urge you (and anyone else planning to come) to go through this document and come prepared to enhance, develop, adjust, beef it up so that it's better suited to the task at hand. Regards, Brian On 24 Jan 2006, at 13:23, Wainaina Mungai wrote:
Hi Brian,
My input would be on the role of civil society organisations under "Roles and Accountability". The main roles may be listed as;
-> Accountability & Transparency: Keep political and market forces accountable to the needs of society and encourage social responsibility & good governance. -> Awareness raising & capacity building (especially to the unreached) -> Ensure a social justice & human/consumer centred approach -> Universal access/last mile solutions such as community-based and community-run initiatives. -> Implement and encourage non-market-led interventions (poor, disability, gender etc)
Put another way, CSOs must be the "conscience" that keeps both market and political forces on the path of social justice and intervenes where the two cannot adequately meet the needs of the people.
Regards,
Wainaina Mungai http://www.madeinkenya.org
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
-------Original Message------- From: John Walubengo <jwalubengo@kcct.ac.ke> Subject: Re: [Kictanet] Workshop to discuss ICT Strategy Paper Sent: 24 Jan '06 07:37
Hi Brian,
I just thought I would share my reactions in advanced given that I may arrive later (or not) due some other meeting on the same day.
The paper seems to be hurriedly cobbled together, ideas are good and factual BUT they have NOT been contextualised within the Kenyan environment.
For example, the paper semms to emphasise a lot on outsourcing projects (call centers, BPOs, etc) and the proposal to market Kenya as the hot destination for the same (BPOs, Call Center,etc) by March 2006.
My worry is that if we market Kenya from this dimension, when our domestic infrastructure if far being ready to handle the resulting/impact of such a would be succesfull marketing campaign, then we create a disaster. The first 3 or 5 investors would get in, get burned and get out. And then the rest would learn - from the bad experiences of the first few - and then probably never step in Kenya again. {might be good to hear the challenges of the 2 or 3 BPOs who've been in Kenya for the last 2years, and why the number has not grown}
In other words this ICT strategy looks at what Kenya should be in 5-10years time but tries to set milestones for the same within a 1year bracket. So, to me theres is need to be honest with what can be achieved in the next 1year as we look towards the next 5, 10 years.
The priorities for the next 1year are unfortunately the 'boring' and difficult things that nobody seems to want to do. This includes, but is not limited to:
i) Regulatory issues: - there's need to ensure that the Regulator is effectively independent to monitor and regulate the industry. Quality standards, Affordability, effective Competition, Consumer Protection, remain but some of the challenges CCK seems to avoid.
ii) Government Issues: - there's need to ensure that the Government plays its role as far as enacting the appropriate legislations and regulation is concerned. Government should also ensure that the secondary but supporting infrastructure such as Electricity, Road networks exist to make it easier for Telecom Operators to expand their reach. Govt must concretely enhance or institutionalise Public Private Partnerships (PPP), etc.
iii) Private Sector:- With a strong PPP, there will definately be opportunities for private sector to pump in sufficient funds to build and expand the Telecom Infrastructure (particularly the Fixed Line Network).
iv) Content Development:-We really do not have significant presence on the internet -as a country. Most of the Internet Users in Kenya log in to access international content. Even percieved local content like www.nationaudio.com seat on foreign sites. eGovernment initiates must lead the way to provide locally relevant content along the lines K.R.A is doing. Strategies to encourage Universities and Colleges to do the same must be sought.
To me these are some of the immediate things to put in place and they are the ones to be milestoned within a year. The rest would then automatically fall in place.
walu.
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