'Explore the Asian market'

MUMBAI, INDIA: It will take years to beat India in the matter of power of demographics.

Countries like Australia, India and Japan should start playing on each other's strengths and explore the bigger opportunities within Asia that lie untapped, opined pundits at the inaugural day of the Nasscom Leadership Forum 2008 here today.

Egidio Zarrella, global partner, IT Advisory Practice, KPMG says, "Let us collaborate. Australia doesn't have the population and skills India has, but we have the wisdom, why not combine the two powers and work together."

Most Asian companies are increasingly outsourcing, that too within the continent itself, as it came out from a KPMG survey that Zarrella cited.

So when Pakistan has made inroads into the Middle East even though it lacks the experience India has or when China has the first foot in Japan which is a huge market lying untouched in the face of language problems, it is time that Asian countries join together by leveraging on each other's best advantages and reap the vast potential in Asia itself.

This seemed to be the general feeling emanated from the APAC session held today.

India can look closer at neighbors in a different light. For instance, Looi Kien Leong, founder, 1001 Technologies from Malaysia projected the IT spending in Malaysia for 2008 to touch about $12 billion.

"While there is moderate growth in hardware and software, there are bright sparks in SSO (Shared Services and Outsourcing). Given our cultural and business proximity, we can be great gateways for markets like the Middle East worth $40 billion or greater China which is worth $250 billion," he said.

With a major chunk of population coming under the old age in geographies like Japan and Australia, this is clearly one edge that India and China command, as Zarrella explained.

"India is in a powerful position when it comes to IT growth. Let's stop dwelling on the negatives that have emerged recently in the media. Markets like Vietnam and Japan are waiting to be served as they open up for outsourcing in a big away," Zarrella said.

Jehan Ara, president, PASHA (Pakistan Software House Association), shared some dollops from Pakistan, which as per a recent review can be pegged at around $3 billion, of which 50 per cent is domestic.

In due comparisons with India, Pakistan is lagging in areas like scale and branding.

With about a 100 million young people and 500 companies, Pakistan would focus on high-value work instead of scale unlike its Indian counterparts, she said.

"And we need to work on marketing and branding," said Jehan.

She added that the current political scenario in Pakistan has no impact on its business whatsoever, which stands as an advantage in a way for the country's industry.

"India can work with us to tap the Middle East market, where we already have made inroads both in cultural and business arenas," she said.

On the other hand, China stands at a unique position with its edge on demographics as well as market, but lacks significantly on training and resource quality.

Fanny Chan, senior vice president, Chinasoft International talked about how the Chinese IT services market is growing at an average 30 per cent with big spendings coming from government, telecom and financial companies.

"Despite a number of five million graduates per year, there still exists a big gap on the training side," Fanny said.

As its neighbors made an emphatic case for inter-country collaboration, Kamal Mansharamani, CEO, Birlasoft Ltd, gave the Indian response as thus.

"There is an increased pressure on Indian industry to globalize and I guess it's the right time to look beyond the US," said Kamal.

Issues like free trade agreements and easy movement of people across nations call for immediate attention as the meet pointed out.

The speakers were delving on various issues for ICT in Asia Pacific in a panel discussion chaired by Ashank Desai, founder, Mastek.