We
have initiated a regular series of interviews with heads
of multimedia associations from around the world. The
purpose of the interviews is to give you, the reader,
a closer look at the people and the issues that are
part and parcel of the multimedia industry in different
countries and regions of the world.
Nov, 2006
Face to Face with Gerard Rego of MSC Software
30 Nov, 2006
Gerard is the VP & GM India Product Development of MSC Software, the global leader in enterprise simulation and VPD software. Over the years his domain lies in innovation and product engineering and management from a deep understanding of business and technology. Recently he was selected as a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University which attracts the top technologists and social entrepreneurs in the world and also selected as a Wharton Fellow 05. Gerard is a Member of the Advisory Board at India Knowledge@Wharton. He is a donor member of the Society of Fellows at the Aspen Institute. A Bachelors in Math, Masters in Sociology and is currently completing a research thesis in Innovation for an MPhil in Entrepreneurship. He was just featured among a group of four Pune 2006 Super Achievers Award given to leading businessmen, entrepreneurs and executives.
Q: MSC Software has grown manifolds since its inception in 1963. And growth has primarily been organic in nature, share with us instances that took MSC in next league.
Ans. The key to our growth has been fundamental. We grew out of a necessity from NASA and that has been the foundation over the last forty years. This growth has seen MSC Software emerge and remain a global leader which is no ordinary feat, considering the time frame in the IT industry for companies to lead the market. In addition the key to our leadership remains our people, customers and the products and support we consistently deliver to the marketplace. Our products such as NASTRAN are and have been the industry standard for the period, which is an amazing feat considering that we work in mission critical engineering industries.
A 40-year veteran in offering game-changing simulation tools, MSC Software supports thousands of companies in hundreds of industries, integrating information, technology, software, services, and systems to enable faster and more efficient development of market-leading products. Headquartered in Santa Ana, California, MSC Software employs more than 1200 people in 23 countries. MSC Software Corporation is the leading global provider of integrated enterprise simulation solutions that enable radical improvement in the time and costs associated with designing and testing manufactured products. Delivered over the fully integrated and extendable SimEnterprise platform, the companys integrated virtual product development tools use detailed digital product models to simulate and verify every aspect of product performance. This empowers manufacturers to make and track critical design decisions and communicate and coordinate product development with all points of the enterprise, driving product innovation and quality to new and competitively sustainable levels.
Q: 2006 has seen MSC listing on NASDAQ. How has this changed the way you do business and customer responsiveness?
Ans. Our listing on NASDAQ has not changed in anyway how we continue to do business which is based on being transparent, competitive and delivering bottom-line (ROI) to customers, resulting in greater shareholder value.
Q: MSC has witnessed the industry evolving, which direction do you see it heading?
Ans. This is the most exciting question. We are leading the change and transition of the global engineering industry from being point-based solutions, to being enterprise wide, multidisciplinary, collaborative and a common infrastructure. The industries being impacted are across the board from automotive, aerospace and defense to engineering and consumer products. The NASSCOM- BAH report outlined the ESO (Engineering Services Outsourcing) as the next cycle for India which is estimated to grow to over $1 trillion from $700 billion today. This opportunity is a distributed opportunity across time, geography and domain which will require enterprise wide software as an enabler to this opportunity. What MSC is doing is exactly what companies like SAP and oracle did over the 90s which is transition point based solutions into ERP. This is game changing!
MSC Softwares suite of core products cover the full spectrum of engineering analysis from linear, nonlinear and explicit nonlinear to computational fluid dynamics, fluid system interaction, and more to help you overcome even the most challenging product development hurdles. MSC Software offers bundled solutions for solving complex problems, such as static and transient nonlinear analysis, implicit nonlinear analysis with contact for highly nonlinear deformation problems, and explicit nonlinear analysis for problems involving crush, crash, drops, and dynamic motion analysis.
Q: What are the dynamics that drive the industry?
Ans. Our industry is based on the fundamental economy, manufacturing of automobiles, aircraft, engineering products and new emerging industries such as biomedical engineering. The dynamics that drive our industry are what all CEOs are asking; How do we get to the market faster, cheaper and with the least margin for error in the engineering. The mission critical nature and impact of the engineering lifecycle can be seem from the Airbus A380 program which highlights the nature and dynamics of our industry.
Q: How is MSC Software India contributing to overall growth of the organization?
Ans. We took a decision to make MSC India to contribute extending our product development competitiveness which is strategic in nature. Our role in MSC India is very exciting as we are working across the board on bringing our next generation SimEnteprise product line ahead of schedule and extending our engineering solutions product lines. In addition we have also set up QA, tech support and documentation & Training groups which has been a challenge, but with great success supporting customers across the globe. This is an important achievement considering we operate an extremely high domain industry. The people we hire in MSC India are hired for their ideas and passion to contribute to this mission. We are a great example of a global company leveraging India as a talent and leadership engine, rather than just a cost arbitrage or for maintenance effort. This brings in the best talent because there are very few companies who have taken this approach to leveraging product development strategically. In addition our partnership with GSSL has been great in this direction. We are also attracting talent from across the world to build a multicultural workforce in MSC India.
The key to Indias competitiveness will be in manufacturing and this is where we step in. Companies across the engineering spectrum will be able to leverage the human capital in India to build products for Indian and global markets. What is also very exciting is that engineering graduates will be able to leverage software in engineering rather than opt for a software career in non-core areas.
In addition we want to now work with the ecosystem in India to catalyze the ESO opportunity across engineering software providers, companies in the industries we do business in being more competitive such as automotive, aerospace and defense, engineering, et al, global MNCs creating their engineering divisions in India, working with SMEs in India go global by creating greater value in their products and services and with the universities to create a supply chain of human capital to leverage this opportunity over the coming decade. We are very excited and committed to contributing to in our own small way to establishing this ecosystem and now working within our organization and our partners. The ESO is a great opportunity for India and not just a software development opportunity. What will be key is domain and this is where we have the public sector such as HAL, ISRO, DRDO, NAL, et al, the private enterprise from the TATA group to SME clusters in Pune, coimbatore and Chennai, software development companies with engineering services teams who are now gearing up for the next cycle in the coming decade. What is also exciting for our customers is that India is in itself becoming a very large economy and scheduled to be one of the worlds largest economies in the coming decades. This creates additional opportunity for our customers to leverage our products to being more competitive.
Q: Constant Innovation is a prerequisite for cutting edge product development, what steps does MSC undertake to ensure the same?
Ans. The key to product development the culture of innovation and the process to take the product development life cycle to production and market. This is where at MSC Software we have created that hybrid. So we constantly push our envelope between product management and product development to stay ahead of the marketplace and drive our value. Our customers include top global automotive companies, aerospace and defense, government and others in the ecosystem. The advantage we have is that we are very focused on our customers whose competitiveness in their engineering life cycle is directly impacted by our products and technologies.
(ISource: National Association of Software and Services Companies, India) (www.nasscom.org)
Rajesh Nambiar, Vice President & General Manager, IBM
Rajesh Nambiar is the Vice President & General Manager of IBM Global Services in India.
Rajesh is responsible for refining IBMs globally integrated delivery framework, focus on client satisfaction levels and development of talent pool in India. He helps synergize IBMs globally benchmarked processes, and vast global network of centers to ensure operational and cost efficiencies that will allow IBM India to better adapt to the changing market and client demands for transformation and innovation.
Before joining IBM, Rajesh spent nearly 18 years in both sales and delivery at Tata Consultancy Services and was running its Eastern USA operations (sales and delivery) based in New York.
Q: Can you give us an overview of IBMs Global Delivery Capabilities?
Ans: To begin with, IBM has decades of global experience in this business. By serving customers in more than 160 countries, we have the necessary experience, management discipline, tools and processes to run a global enterprise effectively and efficiently.
IBM presents unparalleled Global Delivery offerings. IBM remains the leader in consulting, systems integration, application services and business process outsourcing. To add to this, we have an unmatched Global Delivery skills and global resourcing model, especially in the cutting edge technology areas like Information On Demand and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). IBM perhaps is the only organization which focuses on Services research which leads to fine tuning the way services are delivered globally. To maintain quality and get the right mix of skills at competitive rates, we blend our local and global resources to meet constantly changing client requirements.
And finally, IBM's Global Delivery footprint allows us to deliver quality solutions to our clients in every corner of the world and leverage our worldwide presence for their benefit. IBM has focused its Global Delivery Centers in India, China and Brazil due to their strong technical skills, price competitiveness, language support capabilities, network connectivity and close proximity to major cities around the world.
Q: What does IBM mean by being a truly Globally Integrated Company?
Ans: Driving growth globally today requires companies to leverage the skills and capabilities of a global workforce, integrate operations and successfully manage their business globally. This is what IBM means by Global Integration. To us, Globalization is having the ability to assemble the right skills, in the right place, at the right cost and being able to harness them along with our expertise and experience on behalf of clients.
Through global integration; and not necessarily labor arbitrage, we are capitalizing on emerging talent pools and integrating them with our local expertise to drive value for clients. Moreover, we are using technology to automate processes for continuous productivity gains and driving fundamental change in the way we manage our operations. When we do thistransform the processes and integrate globallytwo things happen: costs go down and service levels go up. And this creates unique capabilities for IBM to drive growth. This also gives a new definition for Globally Integrated Enterprise.
Q: What role does India play in IBMs Global Delivery?
Ans: The emerging countries are amongst the fastest growing markets in the world for IBM, and India has been performing extremely well. India posted a growth of over 30 percent last year.
India is one of our key locations with 53000 employees (end of 2006), 25 competency centers and a committed investment of USD 6 Billion over the next 3 years. IBM has set up the complete range of our services capabilities including Consulting & Systems Integration, Infrastructure, Applications and Business Process transformation and management as well as R&D labs in India and a strong sales & distribution team to tap the dynamically growing India domestic market. Recently India/South Asia has become IBM's sixth region within the Asia Pacific. This landmark change signifies IBM India's coming of age.
IBM India is at the forefront of global delivery, offering the widest range of global delivery capabilities from a large resource pool of experienced professionals. For instance, IBMs Global Services Solution Center (GBSC) develops business solutions which is transforming global delivery from resource based model to asset based model is based in India and drives business solutions across IBM. India also plays a significant role in bringing value from SOA to our clients worldwide. Global Delivery in India is an integral part of IBM Corporation.
Q: What are some of the advantages a client may experience as a result of utilizing IBMs global delivery capabilities?
Ans: Use of global delivery capabilities can provide the client with a number of benefits. Access to the right talent and overall cost reduction helps increase productivity and protects margins in down markets. Better return on IT investment can be achieved because virtualized resources globally facilitate asset redeployment which helps reduce investment.
Global delivery teams can provide faster access to sought after skills, 24x7 support and follow the sun development/maintenance of projects, and allow a company to focus its workforce on its core business.
Q: What is recruitment policy at IBMs and methods adopted to curb attrition? Ans: IBM strives to maintain a positive work environment to attract, retain and motivate its
workforce.
We continually develop our employees so they continue to meet our clients current and future needs. At the same time, we strive to prepare our employees for advancement within IBM based on their skills, interests and business opportunities.
At IBM, we regularly review our compensation and benefit programs, and adjust them as needed to help ensure that they are competitive in the marketplace and can help us attract and retain the talent that we need.
IBM's attrition rate remains one of lowest in the industry. We retain our existing talent by offering challenging technical work, leading edge work/life programs, competitive pay and benefit programs, training and development programs, and stock options for key contributors. IBMs people policies such as respect for individual, diversity in workforce, best person for the job, technical and leadership training, career growth are easily the best in the Industry.
Q: What will be your focus in 2007? What are some of the new initiatives you are looking at in the coming year?
Ans: IBM Global Delivery will continue its momentum in 2007. Last year we have, in India itself, increased our footprint and headcount. We opened couple of new centers and commenced a few of our unique initiatives like setting up the Global Business Solutions Center and SOA Solution Center.
We will increase our focus in the Industry solutions and domain experience and building increased business value for our customers in 2007 while maintaining our technology leadership. The demand environment is very encouraging and we will focus on growing and having the right leadership to manage this growth that we are witnessing. In summary, IBM India cannot be in a better position than we are today.
(ISource: National Association of Software and Services Companies, India) (www.nasscom.org)
Face to Face with Gerard Rego of MSC Software 
Rajesh Nambiar is the Vice President & General Manager of IBM Global Services in India. 
