A recent weekend in Las Vegas took me to the Secret Garden of Seigfried & Roy, which is tucked away in the grounds of the Mirage casino and hotel. Standing and admiring Vishnu the enormous tiger, it was amusing when the tiger sneezed suddenly and the old American lady standing next to me said Bless youpossibly an automatic response but quite unexpected! Vishnu glared at us and walked away but it set me thinking about the finer points of the Western world and how much we can still learn about old world courtesies that still prevail. Presidential candidate Barack Obama writes in his book, The Audacity of Hope, that every time he meets a kid who speaks clearly, and looks him in the eye and says thank you and please and excuse me, he feels more hopeful about America. In our own industry, where over a million young people are striving to become global citizens and rubbing shoulders with clients and colleagues of many nationalities, there is a lot to be gained by building a new spirit of cooperation and camaraderie that we have so much to gain and nothing to lose by doing.

My personal sense of fulfilment at being appointed chairman of Nasscom at a time when the industry is at the crossroads is somewhat tempered by the enormity of the challenges facing us in various segments of the IT and BPO industry. After a decade and more of spectacular growth, it seems to some in the industry, the analyst community, and the government, that this is an industry that has matured and will now chug along at a respectable if less spectacular pace to keep its place in the global sun.

Ganesh natarajan

The new mantra I have chosen to keep me focused on what can be achieved in 2008 is the 3C agendacreativity, community, and collaboration! Creativity is the source of all innovation. The ability to tap individual creativity will need a strong environment of change in our approach to business and markets. The creation of vibrant communities that go beyond social networking and enable business idea networks to proliferate, integrating people across geography and company barriers will enable new ideas to be shared, old mistakes to be avoided and a best practice sharing culture to emerge that will be of immense benefit to the firms and the country in the medium term. And all this will happen through collaborationthe type of camaraderie that has made Nasscom such a great institution will need to extend to all strata of firms to present a One India One Industry face to the world and enable new opportunity areas to be spotted and tapped.

Nasscom itself has many new horizons to conquer. The global outsourcing industry, which is over ten times the size of our own captured market, presents many white spaces that can be targeted and won by Indian firms to take the industry to a $200 bn-level in the next decade. With many young product and IP creating firms standing up to be counted, the potential exists to double this number if the environment is right. While we should not forget that there are many contenders for opportunity share in the emerging IT and BPO landscape, Indian ingenuity can still get us there, with the right support from eco-system partners like the government, financial institutions and academia.

It promises to be an exciting year for all of us! For those of you who have been readers of this column through the decade or more it has been appearing in Indias premier IT magazine, here is a requestdo write in with your ideas on how we can build on these 3C themes. Most importantly, how can we disprove a point that Obama makes which is as valid for the new India as it is for the Westthat people today value nothing so much as being rich, thin, famous, and entertained, and build an industry which can be a true role model for the millions of young people who seek careers in our industry and our country every year!

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