Lessons from Ireland

The latest news is: “Apple computers shutdown their operations in Bangalore“.Even though the reasons for the shutdown it not very clear the message from the western world is very clear “You cannot bet only on your cost effectiveness for long term”. This news takes back me to back to 2003 to one of the excellent speeches I have heard so far. It was by one of the top executives of my organization.Eventhough I am not remembering exact words what he spoke on that day following I could clearly remember the summary. Here it is:

“In 1970s and 1980s Ireland was one of major the hub for computer manufacturing. In 1988, no fewer than seventeen computer vendors from different parts of the world ran assembly facilities in Ireland. Because of this unprecedented boom, costs went up and during 1990s companies started shutting down their operations in Ireland. But Ireland folks re-invented themselves the started building software firms in Ireland. Today these software firms stands as ‘Centers for excellence’ and most of the mainframe patents come from Ireland today. Indian software firms need to learn from this example instead of going through the difficult phase. Unless or otherwise India builds up a strong technical community which stands for technology leadership, knowledge creation and intellectual capital it is doing to be challenging times for India in the future”

By reading thro’ the ‘Hardware Factories Turn Into Software Shops’ article from Enterprise Ireland website I think there is a lot to learn from them and get prepared before it hits.