Calling All IT Giants

The presence of a number of educational institutes including an IIM and IIT,
large-scale industries, especially that of automobile, cement etc, and corporate
sector, makes Indore one of the most favored IT destinations within Madhya
Pradesh (MP). In addition, the city has huge financial muscle and caters to the
entire MP region including rural areas, distinguishing it from other upcountry
markets in the country.

Despite a change in the buying pattern of the government, owing to elections,
and with the corporate pulling the strings on their IT purchasing in the face of
the current economic crisis, Indore IT market continued to register significant
growth figures. The Indore market generates a business of more than Rs 40 crore
every month.

“For the past five to six months there has been a dip in the sales as there
has been no major buying from the government and corporate sector. The last
quarter registered a growth as low as 20 percent. However, there has been a
growth in the mid range laptops valued at less than Rs 30,000 alongside that of
storage products. The government sector accounted for a growth of close to 40
percent, while the corporate vertical's contribution to the overall sales stood
at 30 percent,” commented Sudhir Arora, CEO of Indore-based Computer Gallery.

Indore

FACT FILE Education, automotive industry driving growth of IT Last fiscal saw Rs 3 to 4 crore worth e-governance projects implemented in Indore 20 percent growth registered in the last quarter

Despite trying times owing to the recession, the coming year will see Indore
registering a huge growth and double its market size. This growth will largely
be triggered by storage and security products that has become a primary
requirement of a large number of businesses including that of SMBs, SMEs,
government and corporate.

In view of the rising petrol prices and with the home office concept becoming
the order of the day, another technology that will gain demand is video
conferencing.

Education is yet another vertical that drives IT business in the region.
While there are already a number of medical and engineering colleges in the
city, by July 2009, IIT will open yet another branch in Indore. This development
will give a major boost to the IT business. This year the city accounted for a
sale of over 5,000 units of laptops, while desktops were not far behind with
more than 2,500 units sold in the Indore market alone.

Another reason for steady growth of the market is the presence of automobile
industry and e-governance initiatives taken by the government. The above creates
demand for a whole range of IT products starting from high-end security to
storage, server and computing. Increase in the number of registered channel
partners is yet another reason that has helped in grooming Indore as an IT hub
within Madhya Pradesh.

“Previous year there were only about 220 registered partners. However, the
figure now stands close to 300 odd partners. In addition, the IT Summit held
last year saw the government announce some major e-governance initiatives
alongside improvising IT policy within the region,” reiterated Siddharth Jain,
Branch Manager, Redington India.

Jain further added that last fiscal alone saw Rs 3 to 4 crore worth
e-governance projects being implemented in Indore and the figure will continue
to grow with government announcing a slew of e-governance projects. Products and
solutions revolving around networking and enterprise will gain prominence as
more and more customers are becoming aware of the same.

The automotive industry of Pithampur attracted investment of more than Rs
6,000 crore in the previous year with major investments happening around
installation of IT products. Pithampur now has five OEMs and a number of
component manufacturers, which is reason enough to boost IT sales in Indore.

Rajkumar Jain, CEO, Business Automation Systems added, “With large companies
setting up their offices in the region there has been a growing demand for
end-to-end internal networking and computerization. There has also been high
demand for storage and server products and high-end data and network security
that includes high-end firewalls and access control system.

Going by the current trend, products and solutions to do with power will
witness a major growth given the power condition in Indore and nearby locations.
This aside the growth and expansion in the SMB segment will attract many IT
giants to step up their business in the region. Meanwhile, retail will not lag
far behind as LFRs will try and give visibility to the whole range of IT
products thereby generating higher demand for the same.

POOJA SHARMA

poojas@cybermedia.co.in