Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Software Market in India

Sometime ago, IT department in Orissa invited bids from IT Biggies like Infosys,TCS, WIPRO for a software project. Most of these companies did not respond. The project was eventually awarded to a smaller company.

I came across a news story where wipro and tcs are competing for a government software project.

India was never a big software market. All IT services companies depended on the West for their bread and butter. TCS catered to the domestic market. But Infosys, Wirpro never did projects in India. It was because the market was small, the margins were this and west had the glamour. Today the scenario has changed. The markets in the west have saturated. The growth is non-existent. The economic downtuen has hit companies and their IT budgets.

And, the Indian market is growing. The Government spending on IT is growing. These are signs of country coming off age.

In Japan, the country was closed to foreign palyers but the japanese companies fought fiercely for the domestic market. The country was very quality conscious. This helped in building world class companies in every industry sector.

I hope that in India similar phenomenon would take place. The domestic market should give rise to many more Infosyses in every part of India.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Strategies in Economic Downturn

I had an opportunity to attend Oracle Executive Summit. The prevailing theme was what to do during the current Economic Downturn. 

Each of the presentations by Oracle executives had the same (obvious) message: invest more in IT; The Upturn is coming soon; you will be ready for the upturn when it comes.

However, it is serious problem on hand for everyone in our sphere. For the students, campus jobs will be hard to come by. For the institute, more student applications for our programmes is expected as a result of the first reason. For the Institute, more applications are expected for our faculty positions. For the Institute, mobilizing funds from the Indutrry will be challenging as they have put a stop on the discretionary spending.

I will rephrase the advise from Oracle summit for the students: invest in education so that you are ready to grab the opportunity when the industry offers.

For the Institute it is opportunity to acquire faculty talent during the economic downturn. More important is to develop and retain the talent when competing forces claim the talent during the economic upturn.

The economic downturn has already brought some benefits. As the steel and cement prices mellow, the construction of the campus will be be somewhat cheaper.