The World is Flat

I have just finished the famous book "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" by Thomas Freidman. http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/worldisflat.htm
I was waiting for long time to read the tome on the best guide to Outsourcing and India in recent past and most importantly you can find "Infosys" word or reference to Infosys in every alternate page...Being an infoscion myself, that was the biggest driver to read.

There has never been such prolific writing on Outsourcing and globalization with so many references to Infosys.
By the way you can find the book in all Infosys Libraries. You will get recommendation for reading the same from most of Infosys Delivery Unit and IBU(Integrated Business Unit) heads.

I remember that I first decided to read it when my IBU's head recommended the same during his visit our development centre.

Thomas(Tom) begins the book with his Bangalore visit and discussions with Nandan Nilekani(http://www.infosys.com/about/nandan_nilekani.asp). This book is all about transition that globalization has created which is fueling the outsourcing trends, increasing penetration of new companies in developing countries and companies from developing countries into developed countries, all factors which are transforming world from round to flat putting every other employee and company face to face with each other to compete with each other.

He begins with how Indian IT companies, and BPOs, the outsourcing champions are transforming the way business is done. He goes on to establish how the trend is irreversible and enumerates number of examples how outsourcing in good for America as well as India, China, Russia and Eastern Europe. You can find the phrase "Indian, Chinese, Russians, Poles" umpteen times in 400 page book.

He substantiates his points with numerous discussions that he had with CEOs of Indian IT companies like Nandan, Jerry Rao of Mphasis, and Vivek Paul of Wipro etc... Indian academicians, Indian researches, Indian born Venture capitalists etc.. You will be surprised to find mention of so many Indians in Nonfiction book of a patriotic American.... You will be surprised why I am terming Tom as patriotic because in middle and end of book, he becomes a lecturer who teaches what Americans should do to be on the leading edge of technology curve. He vehemently castigates Americans for complacency that has set in last 10-15 years.

I was surprised not to read much on Infrastructure problems at Bangalore although he spent lot of time during his stay while he was making documentary for Discovery Channel.

Interesting portions of book include the 10 flatteners which caused Flattening of world, Praise for Indian IT industry from bottom of his heart, nice insight into Chinese Manufacturing and interesting piece of data on increasing American complacency and declining interest in society towards science and technology education.

I found an interesting story on "Inscouring" on UPS, www.ups.com a logistics giant which has mind boggling 270 planes for transporting goods and freight. The book becomes a bit boring in end when he discusses the UnFlat World in detail like Al Qaeda and America, corrupt monarchies of Arab states which have become hurdles in the biggest transformation after Industrial Revolution.

In Toto, a nice read if you are interested in Outsourcing trends, or you belong to IT Fraternity or just want to read some good stuff on story of World becoming flat.

1 Crore Salary figure

Shilpa Bajoria and the other 3 guys must on cloud nine after their unprecedented performance in Placements at ISB. How these guys must be feeling at this moment????? It’s hard to imagine what must be going through their minds during and after placements... I saw her and One of Prof's interview on India TV. Though Prof and Deputy Dean was not at all fluent in Hindi, This lady was speaking impeccable Hindi in her melodious voice (might have played a major role during placement interview).

Few Points on whole story:

The figure of $233000 was translated in 1 crore by all media channels and even ISB on their website(http://www.isb.edu/media/PressReleaseDetails.asp?ReleaseId=93&ItemId=98) This direct conversion of dollars in Rupees is not at all right because of difference in cost of living and difference in purchasing power parity.(You buy a sandwich for your lunch at 5$ doesn't mean that you are spending Rs200 for your lunch.). Media and definitely ISB should have refrained from quoting figures in Rupees.

The domestic avg is around 11 lakh rupees and growth of domestic salary was just 18%. This makes ISB still very much comparable with IIMs in spite of the avg work ex stands at 5.5 years at ISB versus avg 1 yr at IIM(A), But Nevertheless a great performance.

Placements @ ISB prove that they are able attract best talent and clearly they have set the fight with IIMS in clear Terms.

With Hullabaloo on Reservation is on, ISB is continuing to make strides and is busy setting itself as one of best Management Institutes in world which churns out Management graduates trained under context of developing economies.

Employers will hard to find the best combination of glocal knowledge at any other Institute than ISB.

Let's wait for year to see the trends becoming permanent.