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Follow UsNEW DELHI: Benelux countries comprising Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg
provide big business opportunities for Indian IT companies. Rabo Bank based out
of Netherlands and Nasscom organized a seminar to promote business opportunity
between the two regions. Nasscom projects that software exports from India to
the Benelux countries are expected to go up from 3 per cent in 2000-01 to 5 per
cent in 2003.
The Indian IT presence in Europe and Benelux countries is not impressive due
to barriers such as cultural differences, more inward style of functioning in
Europe as compared to the US and language. Therefore despite the potential in
Benelux countries Indian companies have very limited ground presence. It is thus
imperative that Indian companies utilize the acquisition alliance route for
enhancing their presence in these markets.
Hans Slob, Senior Analyst at Rabo International said, "Indian companies
should seriously explore the possibility of acquiring IT companies in order to
establish presence in the region."
Companies in both the countries have matured technologically and are now
ready too look for international alliance. While Indian companies have developed
the necessary skill sets, companies in Benelux region are keen to outsource
software development to India to help tighten the bottomlines. Some of the areas
where demand for software development is expected are W-LAN, VoIP, Security,
Managed services and embedded software.
At the same time, Indian companies can look for collaboration in areas of
mobile applications like messaging, etc where these countries have developed
advanced applications.
Biotechnology is also being mooted as a huge area for cooperation. While the
Benelux countries are advanced in medical biotechnology, India has more
experience in agri-bio-technology. The Indian opportunity in biotechnology lies
in business such as data mining and data storage. A number of Indian IT
companies has evinced interest in biotechnology.