BANGALORE: “Ground is being prepared for the Red Dragon breathing fire and
the Elephant dance,” stated Pradeep Gupta, managing director, IDC (India) Ltd.
and chairman, CyberMedia Group, referring to the rise of India-China combine as
a key economic power.
This set the agenda for the daylong IDC's Directions Conference, held here
today.
The event brought together leading IT think-tanks and market gurus, who set the
tone for ICT directions in 2007.
Commenting on the GDP growth and route taken by India to become world's
preferred 'IT destination', Gupta said, “India has chosen the Yellow Brick
Road,” drawing a parallel to the one chosen by Dorothy, a famous character in
'The Wizard of Oz.'
“The road ahead is hard but is peppered by a lot of opportunities along the
way,” he said. Gupta spoke of the challenges and the trends afoot for India in
the global IT and communications market for 2007.
On the domestic IT market, Kapil Dev Singh, country manager, IDC (India) shared
encouraging figures of the IT market. On the telecom front, wireless will
witness high growth even though the challenge faced by wireless service
providers will be falling ARPUs (average revenue per user), he noted.
Sharing IDC's prediction for 2006, Singh said, “We shall see a bifurcation of
investment between enterprises and customers rather than just enterprise driven.
By 2007 we shall see a deeper impact on renewed models of delivery, engagement
and users,” Singh said.
Taking the theme forward, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, director, School of
Convergence, CyberMedia, touched upon the political, economic and business
environment that affect India's global positioning. Factors like monsoon,
agricultural dependency, rising oil prices, political uncertainty, and
government policies, he said the growth in India's GDP for 2007 will be slower
at 7-7.5 per cent, marginally falling down from current GDP of 8.4 per cent
(March 2006).
“The agricultural sector in India has grown by only 1.5 per cent, while a large
portion (60 per cent) of Indian population depends on agriculture directly and
indirectly,” he said while relating to the close effect of agrarian economy on
overall Indian GDP.
“Owing to the massive power shortage and theft, we are losing around 10 per cent
of domestic GDP,” revealed Thakurta while commenting on the action needed on
power and infrastructure improvements. Emphasis was on taking the IT revolution
forward in India not at the cost of neglecting the rural needs.
The speakers threw open macro perspective on the movement of IT and
communications industry while tackling three growth drivers — infrastructure
management, mobility and convergence.
© CyberMedia News
India on the yellow brick road
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