Azim Premji laments lack of infrastructure

For those in the hardware industry, there is bad news. Warns Azim Premji, chairman, Wipro, "Banish all hopes of becoming a significant player in the hardware and electronic component business."

Speaking at the a 'Leadership' meet organized by CII in Pune, Premji said,"India does not have a world-class infrastructure to support this industry and does not have a ghost of a chance."

He also cautioned that China was knocking at the doors to join the lucrative software bandwagon. Says he, "With 2,00,000 quality engineers entering the market every year, compared to India's 1,85,000, China is serious competition."

According to Premji, China may be four to five years behind India in terms of quality, technology and project management capabilities, but in two to three years' time, it is going to be a serious threat and our biggest competitor. "China is competing with us in Japan at 60 percent of Indian prices," he adds.

Premji foretells that business was growing in complexity and this is only going to increase from now on, which makes the task of leading organizations more difficult. Organizations need to build more innovations into themselves and this will be the major business differentiator in the next five years.