Thread by @KesariDhwaj

Future IT Hub?
- Given another episode of infra woes in Bangalore, questions are being asked, again, as to why no other city can emerge as the IT hub?
- Let me share with you a real world experience from my professional life, which I hope will answer this +
#bangalorerains

+ question to some extent.
- Many moons ago, I was consulting for a big developer, who for some reason had huge land bank in Mysore.
- A part of their leadership believed that given the proximity of Mysore to Bangalore, IT/ITES office demand will spill into Mysore as well.
+

+ Some others were skeptical and this is where my company came into picture.
- How do you address this question?
- Well, we devised a plan where we basically went and met a wide variety of IT/ITES companies in Bangalore and Mysore to take their opinion on Mysore as possible +

+ future destination or their opinion of it as a possible IT hub.
- We divided the companies into big, medium and small bracket and went about meeting the decision makers.
- Here is the feedback that we got from some companies operating out of Mysore - We can still manage to get+

+ middle or senior management but its the youngsters who don't want to live in Mysore.! They want to work in a larger city where they can also have fun!
- Companies in Bangalore:
(1) Large IT companies - Companies doing top notch work will never go into smaller cities. Simply +

+ because of availability of manpower. Even Hyderabad and Pune are not an option. These companies have same infra standards in their India offices as abroad.
(2) Mid IT Companies - Again, manpower issue. There's safety in numbers. These companies follow other companies. Once +

+ they see that a city has sufficient IT base and associated manpower, they are open to consider other cities like Hyderabad and Pune.
(3) Small IT Companies - These are local companies and are driven by the location of their founders/promoters.
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In this mix, you've one +

+ more category of IT/ITES Companies.
- The likes of IBM, Accenture, TCS, Infosys etc. who have such a massive scale that they've to consider multiple cities for expanding their footprint.
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- Coming to cities, today Hyderabad has developed good momentum as an alternate +

+ option to Bangalore but in terms of sheer size (office space area leased per annum), Bangalore is bigger than Hyderabad and Pune combined.
- The cosmopolitan culture of Bangalore, relatively much better weather and job opportunities attracts people to the city.
+

+ This, in turn attracts more companies to Bangalore.
- This is a closed, self reinforcing loop.
(a) Chennai:
This loop is missing in case of Chennai, which has never managed to rise in rank as an IT/ITES hub, inspite of being an important financial & administrative center.
+

(b) Hyderabad:
- It scores big on infrastructure as compared to Bangalore.
- Its the only city which I know that had made plans for decongestion and moving development in a planned manner towards periphery.
- And it made this plan more than 15 years back.
- Also, please don't +

+ forget the proactive role which AP government played in attracting IT companies to Hyderabad and giving it the nucleus for future growth.
- Many Bangalore developers made IT/ITES parks in Hyderabad; they leveraged their relationship with IT/ITES companies in their +

+ office parks in Bangalore and offered them space for expansion in Hyderabad.
(c) Pune:
- Pune IT/ITES cluster is bigger than what office space leasing data will show.
- This is because it has large self owned campuses.
- BTW, one of the big issues with Pune is limited flight +

+ options due to nature of the airfield (IAF air base).
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In the end, just to show you how big Bangalore is as an IT/ITES destination, consider the stock of Grade A office space (Mn.sft):
Bnglr - 168.4
NCR - 127.7
Hyd - 84.1
Pune - 62.1
Chennai - 58.4
- From an IT/ITES +

+ company's HR's perspective, options amongst companies residing in this massive IT/ITES office hub is much more as compared to other cities.