‘We can be the global knowledge capital’

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Som Mittal has his task cut out. He has to steer the world’s offshoring capital through clouds of uncertainty. Rising rupee, wage hikes and ending export incentives coupled with tough US economic climate and elections threaten to spoil the tech rally, as he takes over the reins from Kiran Karnik in January 2008.

This is, however, nothing new to Mittal, a former chairman of Nasscom and presently Hewlett Packard’s head of services business for the Asia-Pacific and Japan region. He is widely recognised among the industry to have transformed Digital’s Indian operations from a ‘hardware giant’ to a very profitable services company and led it through its merger journey before becoming a part of Hewlett Packard. He was directly involved in the formulation and implementation of the Karnataka government’s IT policy. He has been also on the CII National Council for several years and on chief ministers IT Task Force.

An avid traveller, he narrates his journey from auto industry to IT and spells out his agenda at Nasscom in a freewheeling conversation with Pragati Verma. Excerpts:

You will take over at Nasscom at a time when industry faces some of its biggest challenges. What worries you more—galloping rupee, end of export incentives, question marks over US economic climate or the US elections?

Industry is today showing signs of maturity. We can see challenges but fundamentals of our value proposition are very much in place. The problem with the rupee rise is that it has risen very fast in a very short period of time. It takes time to adjust to a sudden change like this.

Industry is using several levers to mitigate the impact. We have raised hedging and are targeting Europe and Asia aggressively to spread our risk.

The problem is more acute for smaller companies. BPO firms also face bigger problems as they spend mainly in India rupee and earn in dollars. However, we are preparing for an open environment and we will spring back.

So, will Nasscom step up lobbying in Indian government circles in contrast to both your predecessors, who were focussed on the US? What tops your wish list?