Indian IT Market To Emerge A Winner

India's IT spending is expected to grow at an annual rate of 14.1 percent in
2009, down from 18.1 percent growth in 2008, predicts Springboard Research.
Accor­ding to Springboard's latest executive brief titled 'India IT Market
Predictions 2009', IT spending in verticals like retail and real estate will be
hardest hit, while the advent of 3G and a largely protected financial system
will help sustain growth in the telecom and banking/finance verticals
respectively. In addition, government initiatives will spur economic growth and
increase spending on public security and national defence, coupled with rural
sector initiatives should include outlays for new technology in the years to
come.

“With the economic crisis expected to further worsen, we will see IT spending
affected in India, although not to the same degree as in North America, Europe
and other Asia-Pacific markets like Japan, Australia and Korea,” said Manish
Bahl, Research Manager, Springboard Research. “On the other hand, the country
had delivered impressive growth and profits to both leading multinational and
domestic vendors last year, and for many of these vendors, their Indian revenues
grew more than 50 percent in 2008,” added Bahl.

Manish Bahl, Research Manager Springboard Research

As per Springboard the top 10 trends that will shape the IT market in the
India in 2009 are:

• Arrival of 3G will unlock enormous opportunities for IT vendors
• Cost concerns will drive a key focus on IT infrastructure consolidation
• Economic pressures to drive SMBs towards outsourcing and SaaS
• Start-ups and smaller firms become more important accounts for IT vendors
• Virtualization will gain traction in medium and large-sized enterprises
• IT outsourcing will be seen as a catalyst to HR retention and cost
  reductions during the economic squeeze
• Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry to transform further with new
  technologies
• Online advertising markets to gain momentum with the emergence of niche
  social networking sites and regional portals
• The public sector will buoy IT spending
• Green IT will be fueled by cost efficiency benefits

Indian enterprises will be more focused on their 'core' areas to foster
specialization and this will increase their depen­dence on technology to reduce
operational expenditure. Also, the increased use of the Internet and IT will
continue driving infrastructure requirements that will create new opportunities
in the Indian market. “Albeit in a slow pace, SMBs will also play their part to
drive the market and this is well supported by the changing attitude of Indian
companies to view IT as an investment,” continued Bahl.

According to the Springboard, the current economic slowdown will trigger a
new kind of competition in the market as enterprises focus more on RoI
calculations, enhanced planning and extended involvement of the IT vendors. The
ongoing crisis will provide a platform for Indian companies to be more
productive and gain a level of maturity from both business and IT perspective.
At the end of the crisis, India is expected to emerge as a more sophisticated IT
market that plays a bigger role in the overall Asia-Pacific IT market.

“While major multinational vendors continue to view India as a critical
growth market, we expect other US-based firms to amplify their resource influx
into the region and set up special teams to focus only on emerging markets such
as India,” Bahl stated.

DQC News Bureau