The Hindu Business Line : `Encourage innovation'

The Indian services sector accounts for about 52 per cent of the GDP. But this may not be everything to cheer about, as there is no definitive data to substantiate the contribution of various sectors, says Dr Rafiq Dossani, a Researcher at Stanford. A significant part of this is from low-end services created due to migration of people from rural areas and the increasing urbanisation. This calls for introspection, he said.

Value Chain

However, he said that best way to go up the value chain is to create the environment for innovation and encourage manufacturing. That in turn would help scale up services.

Speaking at Second Global Forum on Business Incubation, Dr Dossani, said his interface with IT companies such as Agilent, Wipro and Broadcomm, has shown that a large chunk of this innovation is driven by multinational corporations and Indian service providers need a lot of catching up to do. For instance, Broadcomm has filed for over 60 patents having about 200 developers in Bangalore, and Indian companies are way away from doing anything similar.

Services Innovation

The Nasscom President, Mr Kiran Karnik, said innovation in India is largely based on necessity . The success of the IT sector in India is an ideal example of innovation in services, but this has to be broadened to new areas and cover even small and medium sized enterprises. The Chairman of Nasscom and Satyam Computer, Mr B. Ramalinga Raju, explained how Satyam has sought to constantly innovate braving adversities to stay ahead.