Nasscom Leadership Forum commences in Mumbai

Sudesh Prasad

MUMBAI: The Nasscom Leadership Forum 2007 got underway here today on a positive note with the Union Minister of Information Technology and Communications Dayanidhi Maran reiterating that the Semiconductor Policy would be announced before the Union Budget.

Inaugurating the Forum, Maran called upon industries to maintain a close relationship with developed countries and stressed on improving global competitiveness.

He called for an increased cooperation with emerging IT-BPO markets such as China, the Philippines, Korea and other countries in Eastern Asia and Europe, where there is availability of necessary infrastructure and low cost of operations.

The minister advocated partnership with these countries for certain entry-level IT BPO activities that would help serve a larger number of customers in a more cost effective way. This would help Indian companies gravitate towards high value end of the services spectrum, said Maran.

“The expectations is that the electronics hardware market alone could grow to $363 billion market by 2015 from $28 billion in 2005.”

He added that India is witnessing a lot of action around the development of unique and out-of-the box products. “Indian IT companies have gone into overdrive with their innovation efforts,” he said

Maran said innovation will not only enable India to develop a competitive edge in the global markets and fulfill the vision of inclusion but would also lead to sustainable economic and social development.

“Innovation must become an intrinsic part of the enhanced value proposition that we offer customers in the overseas realms and within our own domestic market. It must drive our IT-BPO industry’s move up the value chain and lend strength to our efforts to build an edge over rival nations,” he said.

Maran touched upon the need to take the pressure off big cities. “A recent note of recommendations from PMO suggests that integrated modern townships for sunrise industries such as IT-BPO are an imperative. The creation of such integrated townships will not only take the pressure off the large cities that are unable to cope with the growing infrastructure demands for supporting developmental needs, it will also help in decentralizing economic activities and spur the evolution of these cities,” he said.

The proceedings got underway with Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom, spelling out some of the challenges before the Indian IT and BPO industry.

Nasscom chairman B Ramalinga Raju in his address lauded the rate of growth of Indian IT industry and related it with the growth of Nasscom. He opined that the industry is moving in the right direction. The industry, he said, contributes about 5.5 per cent of India’s GDP offering direct employment to 1.63 million and more than 2.5 times indirect employment.

He also said that Indian companies have come out of the catch up games and India needed to demonstrate greater innovation in the product development space.

Raju called upon the government to improve infrastructure facilities in the country. “The government of India needs to improve the physical infrastructure which is a major challenge for us,” he urged.

Maran responded by saying infrastructure cannot be created overnight. “We are working on it. We would request the industry to go to Tier II cities to overcome infrastructure and manpower problems. We are also coming up with the concept of integrated township wherein we have identified certain cities to be developed to cater to the location needs of the companies.”

The session concluded with closing remarks by Lakshmi Narayanan, vice chairman, Nasscom. He outlined three major challenges before the industry and the association—Security, workforce development and innovation.

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