Nasscom president Som Mittal is an ever smiling individual. But by no means is he a smiling assassin, as some would like us to believe. Som has had to cope with tremendous criticism during his tenure as the trade body’s chief, but much of it was uncalled for. Last week, his tenure was extended till early 2014, with Nasscom coming out with a statement that Som was an unanimous choice. While there was some bit of bickering among the executive council members, every one had to finally agree that Som was still the best choice. The extension makes Som probably the only Nasscom president to be aged over 60. What makes Som an irreplaceable figure?
He is an IIT-Kanpur, IIM-Ahmedabad product who has worked in some of the world’s biggest technology firms. But his real strength is his ability to connect with people. He has a very approachable air about him, and is an excellent man manager. The Nasscom executive council has 27 members, including such stalwarts like Accenture India managing director Avinash Vasishtha, Google India MD Rajan Anandan, Infosys director Srinath Batni among others. Som has shown great skill to get some of these best minds working together and most of the time he has been able to get the best out of them.
While it is easy to point fingers at Som and criticise some of the shortfalls that may have happened during his regime, one has to understand that he functioned as Nasscom president during arguably the toughest years in global business. When he took charge in 2008, the Wall Street was burning. Then came the West Asia crisis and the European slowdown. Indian IT’s growth slowed considerably during this period and software firms, especially the mid-sized ones, faced a real crisis. The bigger ones like Infosys and Wipro too had to endure a subdued phase.
There was widespread criticism that he was not able to adequately fight the anti-outsourcing wave in the US. Throughout this period Som had to, by design, keep his chin up. Visas were being denied to Indian tech workers and companies were clearly upset. Nasscom tried its best travelling around the US to lobby for the Indian IT industry, but the wave proved too strong. This is when he had to face most criticism, but the dynamics were stacked against him.
Som believes the next two quarters will be crucial. He has said that while the global economy was still uncertain, fundamentals of the industry were still strong enough. One has to see how the next six months hold out, before trying to revise any growth forecast for the industry. The fact is we may have to watch out for a longer term. The next three years look uncertain as far as the $100 billion Indian IT industry is concerned. There are no indications of the slowdown easing up. Deal sizes have shrunk dramatically and customer walk-ins have reduced. While it is clear that companies will have to look at newer ways of doing business, it is difficult to fathom how. Entering newer geographies is one way of doing it, but it is not easy. Infosys has opened a new office in Japan, for instance. China is a hard nut to crack, south America is still an under developed market and Africa is in its early days of software consumption.
According to research firm McKinsey, the Indian IT industry is likely to touch $300 billion in revenues by 2020. But the trouble is that no one seems to know how this can be achieved. Looks like Som’s next big challenge will be to manage such expectations. This is a new world order. And this is the time for re-evaluation.