New Opportunities For The IT Sector – In India And Abroad!

The maiden budget of the new Government and the rousing speech made by Prime Minister Modi on Independence Day have re-created rise to the long missing “feel good” factor in the Indian economy, industry and the stock markets. The focus on infrastructure and manufacturing is timely and the promises of a friendly regime for investment and entrepreneurship should open the floodgates of domestic and foreign investments in nation building, which augurs well for the long term future of India and Indians.

One encouraging feature of the budget for many of us has been the approach it takes to the use of IT in the country. Every individual and corporation has bemoaned, at some time or the other, the lack of transparency in Government and day to day processes of citizen to government interfaces and the announcements regarding good governance will surely pave the way for aggressive e-Government initiatives at the centre and states. The recent clearance by the Union Cabinet of an e-Government centric “Digital India” vision instills confidence that many IT led programs will be put on the fast track. The support given by the Prime Minster to the UID Biometric Identification scheme and the earlier promises made to NASSCOM by the IT Minister and Secretary to support broadband proliferation, development of Tier II and Tier III locations and the support to a National Digital Literacy Mission had given reason to hope that IT would be one of the key enablers of a truly resurgent India.

The intention to leverage technology for access and governance is evident from a slew of initiatives - the Ebiz initiative, E-kranti, Virtual classroom, E-visas, Financial Inclusion Mission and the creation of smart cities will help to enhance technology usage across the length and breadth of the country. Th e strong thrust on entrepreneurship is also welcome with the Rs. 10,000 crore funding for start-ups and the creation of district level incubator networks which should give an enormous boost to the “ten thousand start-up” program announced by NASSCOM last year. A conducive regulatory environment for start-ups and companies to establish, operate and where necessary, close businesses would help improve the business environment in the country. There are many product companies in India who have been impatient to see such an environment emerge and the solid initiatives the Government is taking should be the basis for the development of better technology solutions for all segments of business, industry and social good.

The announced “Digital India” programme will promote digital inclusion with broadband connectivity up to the village level, thereby enabling improved access to services through IT enabled platforms. This, combined with the ambitious National Digital Literacy Mission, which envisages one member every family in the country to be comfortable with digital technologies and a major skills mission enabled through content delivery and learning by technology holds the power to be a true transformation agent for the country. Skills has been one area where Prime Minister Modi has placed great emphasis and we in the industry have long realised that the only way to scale the skills movement in the country is by extensive use of technology. NASSCOM Foundation will accelerate its efforts to add a skill building framework for twenty million people every year on top of the two hundred million people to benefit from the digital literacy agenda. The ability to access a few thousand crores of CSR funds for this initiative and the active policy and budgetary support of the IT and Skills Ministry can set this mission on the path to fruition in the next five years. The industry will look to partner with the government on these initiatives and has urged the government to address key challenges in the current procurement processes so that the industry can contribute optimally in this national agenda. The explosion of e-Commerce in the country and the recent announcements of billion dollar valuation of Flipkart and even higher quantum of money to be invested by Amazon in its Indian e-Commerce pursuit demonstrate the confidence in robust growth that the nation and the IT sector can enjoy.

IT has of course been less dependent on the domestic market and the export led double digit growth is slated to continue and in the case of some companies, even accelerate. The traditional services companies have become full services partners to our customers, offering a range of digital transformation and e-Commerce solutions to supplement the traditional strengths in applications management, package implementation and business process management. With the whole world, particularly B2C business models like Retail, Healthcare, Insurance, Banking and large segments of the manufacturing embracing SMAC ( Social Media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud Computing) in a big way, the opportunities to build web store fronts and enable the development of new “brick and click” models will be numerous. The Digital Commerce Soft ware market opportunity is already over three billion dollars and expected to grow in orders of magnitude as the years unfold.

While traditional services providers morph into product, solution and platform creators and the product eco-system blossoms to support the creation of many new entrepreneurial success stories in the industry, the industry will also engage customers through new models like Infrastructure and Soft ware as a Service and the penetration of the IT industry will extend from the top floor to the shop floor with engineering solutions and IoT (Internet of Things)making technology ubiquitous from demand to supply chains and from business intelligence to shop floor engineering. Customers will continue to become more sophisticated, demanding both technology superiority and easy user interfaces to take the skill out of information access and dissemination. The outlook is good for the industry, across all markets, verticals and service areas. With a three hundred billion revenue goal for 2020 in our sights, the industry is confident that the success story of Indian IT will continue!