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'Software services growth could slow down in the short term'
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 10 April 2008, 18:07 IST
Chennai: Though the growth of Indian IT software services industry would continue, it could be tempered in the short term, according to Som Mittal, President, Nasscom, the industry's apex body.
This stems from the challenges that the industry faces in the form of a possible slowdown in the U.S., while the rupee appreciating against the dollar has only added the IT industry's woes.
"We will meet the $60-billion export target for 2010. That would mean a growth of between 22 and 24 per cent per year - we will achieve that. The prospects for the industry remain robust. There would be growth but it could be tempered in the short term," Mittal said while addressing a gathering to bid farewell to Lakshmi Narayanan, the chairman of Nasscom for the past year.
On education, he said, "If you look at the latest Five-Year Plan, you could easily mistake it for the Education Plan. That is the kind of attention and investments that the Government has committed to the education sector." He said that the industry would have to get more involved in the sector as well as reap the fruit of its efforts through manpower emerging from the country's colleges.
He added that it was important for the industry to expand its global footprint. "Japan, the second largest economy in the world, contributes only two percent to the IT services industry's total revenues." According to Mittal, there was an opportunity waiting to be tapped in that region.
Lakshmi Narayanan, who is also Vice-Chairman of Cognizant Technology Solutions, touched upon the acute need for quality manpower in the industry, and said, "Even if we assume that 20 Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) churn out 500 candidates a year, that only comes to 10,000 people. The largest Indian IT services company alone employs 30,000 people a year."
So, there had to be mass upgradation of colleges to help meet the industry?s manpower need. He added that the country needed to develop its ability to scale with regard to meeting manpower requirements.
Ganesh Natarajan, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Zensar Technologies, who takes over from Narayanan as Nasscom Chairman, agreed saying, "A few more business schools or a few more IITs would not solve our problem." In other words, a concerted effort is required to make a graduate employable, irrespective of the institution in which he studied.
