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If Rajiv Vaishnav, Vice-President of Nasscom (National Association of Software & Service Companies), is to be believed, then 2013-14 promises to be a good year for Indian IT companies. Global contracts worth a few billion are up for grabs.
Moreover, India’s ability to find new markets might see it through with the US still suffering the effects of a downturn. He does maintain hiring to be slow.
Recently in Kolkata, he even does not mix words on iSpirt – the breakaway faction of Nasscom members. Below are edited excerpts:
Is it going to be a good year for the IT industry?
When you say good year, it means that there is a comparison between the years gone by and the current year. There is a flux right now about what is happening in the US. But in terms of business this is definitely going to be a better year than the years gone-by.
And why do you say so?
Because there are a lot of projects where Indian companies are rendering services. These contracts would be up for renewal this year. There is a good potential for Indian companies to bid for them.
Do regulatory issues, over visa rules and outsourcing in the US, threaten the IT growth story?
This is not the first time it has happened. I think business is driving the relationship. So any country which is trying to impose restrictions needs to look at the impact (of these restrictions) on their businesses and economy. It is not a one-way impact. They (restricting countries) too will be impacted.
Hiring by IT companies is down and some have delayed offer letters. Your comments.
Definitely there is a delayed hiring. One must understand we are comparing the situation with the best of times when every student had three-and-a-half jobs in their pockets. Now, suddenly, you see a struggle.
The world has gone through turmoil and severe economic downturns. We have not totally come out of that scenario, be it in the US or Europe. Recovery will take time.
When there was more than one job (per student), we considered it as benchmark. If one has to excel in their specialisation then it is additional effort from the student side that has to be put in. From the industry side, optimisation of resources has improved. The same set of resources will now give better results. Definitely, then there will be an impact on fresh recruits. Earlier, we were hiring in anticipation. Now, we are hiring as and when required.
In earlier interactions, you have mentioned India’s ability to search out new markets during downturns to tide over the crisis. Do you see the same thing happening now?
Of course, that has been the case. The African market is growing. Latin America continues to be big. And Japan is becoming a prominent market for us. So I think these are the opportunities that we now have when the US is not doing too well.
But by design I think we have realised that it’s important not to have all eggs in one basket. So the de-risking of geographies happens.
At Nasscom, we stressed on having new verticals. We have identified seven verticals, including Internet and digital media, software products, IT-services, engineering services and domestic markets amongst others. Each vertical has a huge potential.
We were losing BPO jobs to the Philippines or Vietnam. Has the scenario started looking up?
We are focussed on moving from BPO to BPM (business process management). Therefore, there is bound to be some losses with the change in focus from servicing.
Nasscom too has its own share of problems with a dissenting group setting up its own forum (iSpirt). Your comments.
If you look at the journey of Nasscom, you will see that the BPO sector at one point thought Nasscom was only for software services. Later, they realised it wasn’t the case. In March, we launched the Narayan Murthy report (focussed on making the industry relevant). You must realise industry and industry associations need time to transform. People who broke away from the main activity were those who had been given the responsibility for (software) product evangelisation and ecosystem.
Is Nasscom ready to work with this breakaway faction?
Yes why not. Even the breakaway group are members of Nasscom.
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