INTERVIEW - KAASHYAP RADIANT

www.chennaibest.com speaks to Jayaram Krishnan - Vice-President and Ramkumar - Director, Kaashyap Radiant, on the IT scenario in Chennai today.

Chennai is on par with global trends in terms of growth. As far as infrastructure goes, Chennai scores over many cities including Bangalore. We have so many engineering colleges in Chennai. Culturally, we are a hardworking people. The Government has also recognised IT as a thrust area and is cooperating with the industry for further growth and development. The growth potential is tremedous. A number of software giants are looking at Chennai seriously, as is reflected in the cyber-corridor along the old Mahabalipuram road. As compared to other cities we have been steady and stable in our growth. But we are lagging behind in marketing ourselves properly. We are not matching up when it comes to hype.

There are around 1.2 million students graduating as software professionals each year from the country, yet there is a paucity of good quality manpower. This is a common problem faced by the industry, across the lines, across countries.

Most of the software used abroad is written in India. The problem is there is not much opportunity to apply these software in India. So most students who get trained here have to go abroad for practical application of the software. One more factor is the discrepancy in pay levels between here and abroad. It is slowly catching up though. It may not be totally on par, but we are getting there.

Do you see E-Business taking off in a major way in Chennai?

Bandwidth and connectivity are major issues which have to be tackled in this regard. But E-Business is one area which is surely growing in leaps and bounds. We are right now talking about a Rs 450 crore B2B market and a Rs 50 crore B2C market. The interesting aspect about this business is there will be 'n' number of people sitting at home and developing some web page or providing some e-business solutions. As the industry is scattered among the organised and unorganised sectors, it is difficult to quote a specific figure.

A graduate should go in for a comprehensive course before looking for specialisation in this field.

It has not made any difference in the sense that no harm has come out of it. But it would certainly have been advantageous if they had visited Chennai. We have possibly missed out because all these things depend on the kind of sops the Government gives. For instance, Microsoft has set up its first off-shore development centre in Hyderabad. Most of the software majors are headquartered in Bangalore, namely - Infosys, HP, IBM etc. So there is a major CEOs lobby working in favour of Bangalore. As a result, these other states are highly visible, which is something we lack in.

|