When the topic of India gets brought up in chatting with my colleagues (and students) or friends (especially the long drawn discussions at the dog park), I frequently start off with "No, in reality, it is not like that.." So I thought I should put some of my points in one place (not in any particular order) to decrease entropy generation:
Myth #2: Call centers are very important to India's growth: Not really!. Out of India's $ 76 billion information technology (IT) industry, services such as call centers, tech support and medical transcription constitute a small fraction of the revenue. India has a healthy and growing IT industry that offers high quality software and consulting services on par with the best in the world. Call centers, on the other hand, account for about 1% of GDP and about 0.1% of the workforce,
and since this sector does not involve a high degree of technical skill (I am appreciative of good communication skills)
competition from other low cost markets (such as the Philippines) is
growing. The state of the IT industry, overall, is better because it is not just dependent on low cost services. The IT industry has changed some business approaches and social practices and has been very beneficial, but it still measures only up to 7% of GDP and only recently have some companies started to focus on creating original, innovative products rather than rely on services. In comparison, the engineering industry (including mining and assorted stuff) contributes about 20-25% of the GDP (by some measures) and though traditional industries aren't as "world class" as IT services, specific sectors like automotives are getting there in patches.
