India not yet IT Super Power: Murthy

MUMBAI: Chief Mentor and Chairman of Indian software major, Infosys Technologies, NR Narayana Murthy stressed that we should stop calling ourselves Super Power in IT. "Although the industry is growing at a fast pace, considering the global market, India is still having a miniscule share," he said at a session at Nasscom 2004 under the title, "Key challenges and strategies to offshoring: the political perspective".

He went on to say, "politicians, administrators and the media should stop saying that we are a super power." Quite correctly, after two decades of the industry's existence, India owns a paltry two per cent share of the global market size. However, global majors have started considering Indian players like TCS, Wipro, Infosys and Satyam as being a potential threat competing in their businesses.

He also suggested that the outsourcing backlash should not be sensationalized and made front page news in the media considering that it is a sensitive issue, especially when America would be going through elections this year. He even took a dig at the Central Government saying that we have to liberalize internally before asking other countries to liberalize their views.

Outsourcing becoming a norm is doing the rounds in the 12th edition of Nasscom 2004, a step further from outsourcing being inevitable, during last year. Even as a result of the backlash, US government passing a bill against outsourcing federal government work, the industry is unmoved and continues to bag major contracts on outsourcing from western countries.

CIOL Bureau