Indian It Industry by Ipott Essay

The Indian software exports, as is well known, have grown from less than $100 million before 1990 to over $5 billion in 2000. What is not well known is that revenue per person per year has grown from less than $20,000 to over $50,000 in most large companies in the last five years. This is not simply due to ‘inflation’. Though the industry is still focused on tapping the huge software services market, most of the big players have moved from lower value services to higher value services. In the early days, the service was primarily providing technical manpower, which later moved to providing low-value services like coding and testing. Now Indian companies are operating even at the top end of the spectrum in terms of technology (Corba, Java, E-commerce, etc.) or the services (complete business solutions, consultancy, strategy, etc.). The high rates they command is an indication of the perceived value in the eyes of the customer of the services they provide. The amazing story of the Indian software industry has spread far and wide. Not only the developed countries but also other countries are equally impressed by the performance of the industry. From the presentations that representatives of various Asian and Latin American countries made in a recent workshop in China on ‘IT industry in developing countries’, it is evidently clear that many developing countries today want to emulate the Indian success story. Within India, however, many people continue to view the industry’s success with a mixture of admiration and skepticism. There is a lingering fear or doubt in the minds of many about whether the industry is inherently strong or is it just tapping a window of opportunity which will soon be tapped by other Asian countries with large population and better infrastructure. Given the state of almost everything else in the country, such doubts are not unreasonable. However, India Software Inc has developed some solid strengths that will continue to serve it well, and which will not be easy to emulate by others. We at iPOTT (www.ipott.com) initiated a SWOT, gathering information and opinion from the market. The summed up information is very beneficial for the understanding of the INDIAN SOFTWARE MARKET.