Going global

Motorola CIO and senior V-P Sam Desai talks about sustaining India's competitive advantage in the outsourcing business. Srinivas Rao Konakanchi catches up with him in Florida

Sam DesaiFlorida: "The United States of America is a land of karma yogis and that's the secret of its success. If India awakens to its long-forgotten Vedanta, it will be much better off." These are powerful words from Samir Desai, successful business management expert, Vedantic thinker and a karma yogi. And he was commenting on what India can aspire to learn from America's road to prosperity and development.

Sam, as he likes to be called in the real world, is the chief information officer (CIO) and senior vice-president of Motorola Inc, a global leader in providing integrated communications and embedded electronic solutions.

Passionate in his quest for spreading the wellspring of knowledge in the Bhagwad Gita and his love for golf, Sam goes quite vocal when he recalls his recent visit to India. He modestly refutes the title of a vedantic thinker and quips in his inimitable style: "Vedic thinkers are not around anymore. All this great knowledge was discovered eons ago by our rishis (sages)."

Srinivas Rao Konakanchi of domain-b spoke to him on the subject 'Sustaining India's Competitive Advantage in the Outsourcing Business' at his beautiful residence that overlooks a golf course in Coral Springs, Florida.

What do you think of India's business potential, especially in IT?
I am very upbeat on what's going in India. I feel India is at the threshold of getting up to $50 billion worth of business in the next five years. IT is a very mature industry in India and I see a tremendous gain the country is going to have in the future. Every Fortune 500 company is looking at India. Many companies are at SEI CMM level 5 and in CMMI. That's a huge advantage in software engineering.