IT Potential
Leap ahead or catch up
PHOTO: RASHED SHUMON
Recently I attended a CIO Conference in Indian Wells, California, where the key topic was how to take advantage of Cloud Computing in this economic condition, globally. The FOBANA is a convention for Bangladeshi expatriates in the US, and in July 2009, a common theme resonated that we have significant potential in this perfect storm, to leap ahead in the global market of information technology. We have a significant amount of talent, especially with or without formal post high-school degrees. Culturally we are creative and emotional, which provides a platform for an explosive new world of information technology. An infrastructural framework is needed to capture this market at this moment. The window is pretty short, but components are within reachable distance. I met a few young and exciting Bangladeshi developer-entrepreneurs in Outsource World at Javits Centre, New York. The group I met was definitely brilliant. Support is needed to provide flexible infrastructure with incentives, marketable concepts, delivery readiness and expeditious execution. For example, speaking to one individual related to iphone app developer, current development is related to games, as independent item. It is obvious that this market has potential, with the same skill set, there are enterprise applications that can be developed and sold to the small and medium enterprises market. This is the cloud opportunity, where the commitment for infrastructure is none but creativity and innovation and it will create the difference in the global market. Considering two countries -- Israel, the dominant provider of all information system security products today, had focused on it and delivered. Any major security product would require components from Israel. The second country is India. India has versatile developer contribution, analysis groups, and remote infrastructure management (RIM) leadership. Typically, Bangladesh would follow some trend in IT. We need to change the mind-set, from 'follower' to 'leader'. Once we are a leader in any sub-component, with demand from the global market, we can definitely scale that with the resource pool at hand. With the cloud infrastructure with multi layer expertise and specialisation, we can dominate in one or more layers with great focus. The developers are available in Bangladesh. Maintenance is where we can improve. The package application for tasks is available. We need the customisable options by the end users. At the same time, too much custom application needs to be reduced in production, as knowledge workers are moving more often from organisation to organisation. We can introduce the concept of ownership, accountability and maintainability to our development platform, and we should be there. These are achievable cultural qualities. The readily available components we have now include a vast number of IT graduates, access to the internet via satellite and fibre optic, government focus on a digital revolution, expatriate contribution at conceptual level, developers at all the levels, along with regulations for intellectual property related laws with execution. A critical component for success is the information related to expressed and un-expressed demand from the market. At this moment, the global market is looking for cost savings, consolidation, rapid marketisation of new products or features, and innovation with execution. Expatriates are a great resource for these ideas. In addition, while the country itself is moving towards a digital evolution, opportunities are also piling up. We should not elasticise the time line, which would make us a follower, rather than a leader. Earlier, I mentioned the perfect storm. It is the time. The global economic meltdown, government cash infusion for bailout, burst of the cloud and software as a service market, job loss of the outdated legacy talents, and expected return on any investment less than six months is creating the sense of urgency on action. On top of that, reduced market penetration activities, loss of tribal knowledge, increased work load of average workers, and distribution of specialised knowledge is the best environment for pro-acting initiatives. Could you imagine any situation better than this in creating a new leader for a new market? We need to capture this, and we should capture this, and capture this now. The author is the managing director at Logicworks.
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