Widening Technology Gaps- India’s Top Challenge

Asoke K. Laha
President & MD, Interra IT

Technology is constantly transforming and scaling up and, in the process, it is making the pre-existing ones redundant or obsolete. One may argue that such sweeping changes are happening only in information technology or in the frontier areas of science. Disruption is the rule, and not the exception.

Digitization is making headway in areas such as finance with Bitcoin and Blockchain technology. Look at logistics where most of the disruptions are happening now. Artificial Intelligence, sensors, and drones are rewriting the concepts of logistics and supply chain. Geography has become neutral in managing the logistics. Sitting in the U.S.A., technology platforms can monitor, trace and course correct the movement of goods and services. Not only that, many of the e-commerce companies are entering the field since it is directly connected with their area of their operation. For instance, Amazon is gearing up to expand its logistic solutions to registered sellers. It is also heavily into the food delivery services. In India, it has started a pilot project for the logistics services for its 300 sellers under the banner of its own wing, Amazon Transportation Services (ATS). They are trying to give a chase for the third-party courier services by offering their services at lower competitive cost. 

Another area where technology is scripting sweeping changes is healthcare. The future course of treatment is going to be virtual, where the doctor–patient interface will be kept at the minimal level and most of the procedures ranging from diagnostics to complicated surgeries will be performed through the virtual medium. Once it becomes operational worldwide, it will help make available quality medical services at doorstep to a patient living thousands of miles away from the best doctor or a hospital. 

Disruptions are happening across the board, in many fields. Have we focussed on these frontier technology areas in India? Let us call spade a spade: we have not. Our business models are still steeped in the conventional wisdom and practice, which could have been the order of the day a few decades back. I must confess that we are lagging far behind in the technology ladder. With the same set of skills that we possess, we can at best survive for a few years and then the technology curve will become sloppy.

The bad news is that the technology lag will not only affect our information technology sector, but also the entire gamut of economic and social sectors such as manufacturing, services, agriculture, education and what have you. Starting with information technology, where technocrats including the author, have entered at least three decades ago. Have we made any headstart in taking the IT to the next level? I fear not. All of us have got tuned to the markets that have started with the U.S., Europe, Japan and little bits in China, Latin America, Africa and South Korea. Steady business with rare intervention of disruptions made us complacent. Outsourcing paled into insignificance due to a variety of reasons, the foremost among them is protectionism. 

For quite some time, there has been a silent effort to innovate not only new technologies but also concepts that can replace labour. Several years into such research, there have been a number of success stories in the form of Artificial Intelligence, sensors, automation, robotics, etc. This has helped not only in achieving excellence in production lines and enhancing productivities, but also replacing the labour. In one stroke, automation has helped in reducing the range and quantum of works outsourced. For instance, in the banking sector, automation could reduce the number of employees significantly. In the case of information technology, causality was much bigger. Yet, in the U.S. the Indians stealing the jobs has become an election rhetoric, despite the fact that there are evidences to the contrary. 

Coming back to what needs to be done in India in this situation, the stock answer is that India has to reinvent its relevance vis-a-vis the western world. But the billion-dollar question is how can it be done? It is not an easy task but not an impossible mission. We have to reorient ourselves to meet the world demand for quality professionals who can operate the automation drives, create software for such systems, experts to maintain high-end equipment and devices, work on Artificial Intelligence, create algorithms that can aid research into stem cells and genetics, engage in data mining and analytics in all available avenues, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, healthcare, etc. We also need people who can undertake R&D in the areas of frontier science.  In such initiatives, there is a thumb rule that one should not expect quick results. Fundamental research will take time and is painstaking. Yet, we have to encourage them. 

Incentivization of R&D alone will not hold good. A new ecosystem has to be created, where registration of patents and their protection are ensured. Some of our labs under the government administration have the capacities to undertake fundamental research. Are they being utilized to the full capacity? Can such capacities be leased out to the private sector, particularly the pharmaceutical companies to undertake their in-house research. There can be private-public partnership in R&D as also cross-country partnerships. A research project can be undertaken in stages in various countries where they are more suited to undertake. For instance, an R&D effort to develop new molecules can be undertaken in India in the preliminary stage and at a later stage shifted to another country, where there are more facilities and testing equipment to do so. Registration of patents seems to be a problem area in the Indian context and that has prompted many Indian scientists to shift their locations to foreign laboratories.

The underlying problem is the technology gaps. Our conventional approach to technology and borrowing and adapting them may not be successful in the future. Many of our well-calibrated projects like Digital India and Make in India are not yielding the desired results on account of technology gaps. Are we conscious of such dilemma? We may be good in packaging projects to get the public attention. But our achievement in taking those initiatives to the logical end desires to be improved considerably, lest we would miss the bus this time too.