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Software
Industry in India – Prospects
Source:
Nasscom Report
Introduction
India
has lately acquired a reputation of being ‘Haven
of Software Development". Over the last few
years airlines such as British Airways, Singapore Airlines,
Swissair, United Airlines, etc. are using software written
by Indian programmers. Megacorps like American Express,
Boeing, British Telecom, Citibank, General Electric,
General Motors, Morgan Stanley, Reebok, Sony, Wal-Mart,
and others also buy much of their software from India.
Japan is turning to Indian software companies for digital
signalling systems to get its commuters out of its legendary
traffic-jams. There is a very impressive list of global
software multinationals operating out of India including
AT&T, Baan, Cadence, Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard,
IBM, Lucent, Microsoft, Motorola, Novell, Oracle, Sony
etc., doing much of their development work in India.
According to a study conducted by World Bank in U.S.,
the Indian vendors were rated as their number one choice
for outsourcing software.
In
1998-99, more than 203 out of Fortune 1000 companies
outsourced their software requirements to India as against
only 23 of the Fortune 500 companies in 1990. This shows
the high level of respect multinational companies are
according to Indian software companies.
India Advantage
Companies
around the world are gaining competitive advantages
by using Indian software services. Foreign companies
are attracted towards India for many reasons.
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Cost
and Time Savings: A virtual 12-hour time zone
difference between India and USA offers cost and
time savings.
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Presence
of enormous pool of highly skilled English speaking
professionals, second only to U.S. India has
a growing bank of 4.3 million technical workers,
provided by over 1900 educational institutions and
polytechnics which train more than 73,000 computer
software professionals every year.
-
High
quality. Out of top 300 companies, there are
more than 145 ISO 9000 certified and six SEI CMM
Level 5 software companies.
-
Reliability
– Indian software companies strictly adhere
to delivery schedules and provide total customer
satisfaction by using state-of-the-art technologies.
-
Indian
software companies have very strong brand equity
in major markets.
-
Indian
companies offer innovative, extensive and most cost-effective
E-Business and web based solutions.
Other
points worth noting are:
High
Growth
In
the year 1998-99, according to a study carried out by
National Association of Software and Service Companies
(NASSCOM) New Delhi, the software industry in India
was worth US$ 3.9 billion. Out of the $ 3.9 billion
revenues by Indian software industry, almost $ 2.65
billion was from exports to 91 countries, 61% of it
to the U.S. and the remaining revenues was from domestic
sales. Software exports as well as domestic demand in
the last few years has been consistently growing at
an annual growth rate of about 50 per cent.
The
National I.T.Task Force, has projected software industry
turnover of U.S$ 87 billion by the year 2008, U.S. $
50 billion coming from exports.
Currently
the software industry in India employs more than 280,000
people and continues to be amongst the fastest growing
sectors in the Indian economy.
Global
Presence
Indian
software companies are progressively increasing their
presence on a worldwide basis. Over 500 companies have
set up either subsidiaries or branches overseas, mostly
in U.S. Proximity to markets in other countries is helping
them to offer better services, anticipate market conditions
and client requirements, besides strengthening and building
further relationships.
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