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India ranks 10th in the Asia Pacific for IT competitiveness
By India Abroad News Service
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Thursday, 06 September 2007, 19:30 IST
New Delhi: India ranks 10th in Asia Pacific in a new study comparing 64 countries globally on their environmental factors that support IT industry competitiveness rates. The "IT industry competitiveness index" developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sponsored by the Business Software Alliance, says relatively few countries possess all the factors necessary to support a thriving information technology (IT) sector and concludes that the United States, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom provide the strongest environments for IT competitiveness.
The study addresses key issues such as; what enables an economy to develop competitive IT firms and how to leverage factors that enable economies to bolster the IT sector to participate in global networked economy.The study underscores factors including, ample supply of skills, a pro-innovation culture, world-class technology infrastructure, a robust legal infrastructure and well-balanced government support, not to mention a competition-friendly business environment.
Countries possessing these 'competitiveness enablers' are also home to high-performance IT industries: all but four of the top 22 countries in the EIU index are also among the world's top countries in terms of IT labour productivity.
India, rated No 10 in Asia Pacific, has an overall score of 29.1, and stands at No. 46 globally in the overall comparison of competitiveness. The EIU study finds that few nations? IT sectors can compensate for major environmental weaknesses. India is among the top 22 countries in terms of IT labour productivity, and like China, is one of the few countries that have been able to parlay unique factors, such as workforce size, low wages or language attributes, into strong sector performance, compensating for weaknesses in the business environment. Few other countries will be able to manage this feat. However, India and China will need to improve on their enablers, as their cost advantages will erode.
The study also finds that skills-rich emerging markets are likely to move up the index table. Future rivalry to India and China will come from the likes of Russia, Brazil, Malaysia and Vietnam, as well as smaller nations such as Estonia, Lithuania and Chile. Most perform respectably in at least one aspect of IT competitiveness, and the skills base of each is improving. Carving niches in software development and services represents their best chance of moving up the table.
