Nasscom Picks “Hot” Fields For Indian IT Cos Date:   Friday , May 30, 2003 THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SOFTWARE & SERVICE Companies (Nasscom) has identified six new emerging areas, which have huge potential for growth and have remained untapped by the industry. In its latest strategic review, Nasscom said that these markets are currently on the horizon and represent areas of potential growth for Indian software and service companies. While these areas have a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) ranging from a minimum of 11 per cent to a maximum of 44 per cent, in terms of dollar value, the overall potential ranges from a low of $11 billion to $44 billion, says the apex body. Quoting CIMData, the Nasscom said the global collaborative PDM software services market has been projected to grow at $11 billion by 2006 as against $3.1 billion in 2001, with a CAGR of 25 per cent. The scope for the Indian companies includes application implementation support and maintenance; application integration with other applications (CAD/ERP) and data migration from existing applications to PDM applications. According to Nasscom, the Content Management market is expected to touch $27 billion by 2006 from $4.4 billion in 2001, with a CAGR of 44 per cent. The services include planning, designing, implementation, training and support. Indian companies can serve active players such as Accenture, EDS, CSC, IBM, Cap Gemini, Ernst and Young with their management solutions, support services on interactive platforms, application development for set-top boxes, database management and data-mining services. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is another big market with a potential to grow to $43.4 billion by 2005 from $17.6 billion in 2001, a CAGR of 25 per cent. Platform integration using middleware, data integration and management, business logic and transaction-level integration, adopter-based integrtion and process integration are some of the major opportunities in the EAI market, the review said. Business Intelligence (BI) is another potential area. With a CAGR of 12 per cent, BI sector is expected to touch $18.1 billion by 2005 from $10.4 billion in 2001. The opportunities for the Indian companies in BI include system integration, application implementation, customization, support and maintenance, data warehousing/mining, consulting. The global market for Wireless Applications has been projected to grow at a CAGR of 15 per cent. By 2006 this market would touch the $37.5 billion mark from last year’s $21.4 billion. Protocol development, network design, system integration to legacy systems, development of wireless network applications, vertical specific applications implementation, support and maintenance are sub-segments where Indian companies can focus, the Nasscom review suggested. End-to-end automation of trading process—Straight Through Process (STP)—is another area which has been projected to grow to $6.3 billion by 2004 from $3.4 billion with a CAGR of 23 per cent. The focus area for the Indian companies would be customised applications development, maintenance and support, IT consulting and transaction processing outsourcing, the review pointed out.