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o n e
T
he IT industry in India is booming—in
some ways. For example, software exports are thriving. This fiscal year (ending March
2001),
India’s software exports were expected to be $6.2 billion, up from $4 billion
last year. In 2001-02 the target is $8.7 billion. Even the domestic IT market is growing
quite well: for the first time India sold more than 1 million computers in one single
year, creating an installed base of over 5 million PCs. Domestic software sales were
worth more than $ 2.3 billion, and Internet connections improved, with close to 2.3
million Internet subscribers, or about 8 million users, in India this spring.
The problem we face is that we don’t have adequate bandwidth, although the
government is taking steps to improve it. But the whole country is eating, sleeping,
breathing IT. Young people want to get in with IT; the government wants to get
out there with an IT policy; industries like banking are getting strongly into IT.
We’ve been looking at e-government applications—e-healthcare and telemedicine,
e-education and e-judiciary. There are exciting new segments like e-CRM (Customer
Relationship Management) and ASP (Application Service Provider) models. And
in the export market we are doing well in communication software, wireless Internet,
telecom software, e-commerce and banking IT solutions.
It‘s a good indicator of how the industry is developing—how we are leveraging up.
In the early 1990s, our main job was coding and programming. Now we have moved
up the value chain to system analysis: we evaluate and we do consultancy work
and mission-critical software solutions. I would compare the software industry to a
pyramid: at the top is Research and Development—more and more multi-nationals
are getting their R&D done in India. Then there are whole projects, then coding
and programming and at the base, IT-enabled services—call centers, medical
transcription and back-office operations. And we’re growing at every level.
n
A Fine Legacy
NASDAQ INDIA 2001
