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The global economic slowdown may be a matter of concern for the IT industry. But Nasscom sees a silver lining – there is no dip in demand for IT services.
“Global economies are not doing that well. There is certainly stress. But it is of a different kind. It is not that demand for services is going down. In fact, it is going up,” Saurabh Srivastava, Co-founder and past chairman of Nasscom, said.
Srivastava told Business Line that the industry is consolidating. “Different companies have different issues. But market demand still exists. It, however, is not easy. You see, top-notch companies registered over 30 per cent growth,” he said.
Asked about ranting in the US on outsourcing, he said there was no logic in that argument. Stating that it is all about political compulsions there, he said the unemployment there was not in the IT sector. “Everyone qualified in IT is getting jobs there. The issue (unemployment) is in other sectors. It becomes a topic there because it is convenient for them. The stress I was referring to is on this count,” he said.
Evolution
Srivastava, who is also the Chairman of CA Tech (India), said the industry matrix is evolving. A new breed of companies is emerging in the product and technology space. “There are about 80-100 firms in niche area like cloud technology that came up in the product space that were not there 5-6 years ago,” he said.
“Also, the industry is seeing revenues coming in from non-linear avenues (sources other than the mainstream business) such as intellectual property and product platforms,” he pointed out.
He also spoke on the paradigm shift in the industry. “Things like cloud are evolving. Some firms working in this area are getting more work. Some others might lose work because of this,” he said.
On the European scenario, he said the situation was not good there. “In certain countries such as Spain and Portugal, it is very bad,” he said.
Emerging markets have come of age. “For one, India is one. Till a few years ago, it did not figure in top IT firms’ revenues. But this has changed significantly. Some companies are registering revenues in excess of $1 billion. This has happened largely because of massive spending by the Government,” he said.
>kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in
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