Natarajan Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD, Tata Consultancy Services

Newsline spoke to NASSCOM’s Chairman for 2012-13 on the agenda of the organisation for the year ahead.

Quote

“The Indian IT industry will make a huge and meaningful impact on the domestic market. The industry must make the domestic market a key priority."

Natarajan Chandrasekaran
CEO and MD, Tata Consultancy Services

Q: What according to you will be the key global trends that will shape and impact the Indian IT-BPO industry in 2012-13?

In 2011-12, Indian IT topped the USD 100 billion mark. Beyond leveraging IT to optimise business and run the back office, we are increasingly witnessing a new trend with technology increasingly moving to the front-end of the business to drive revenue growth and generate sales by using a combination of new technologies like cloud computing, big data and mobility. These trends are driving technology spending globally and in 2011, global spends were up 5.4 per cent annually exceeding USD 1.7 trillion.

Q: What is the key agenda for NASSCOM in 2012-13?

In 2012-13, NASSCOM will drive the following initiatives:

The delivery of IT services is undergoing change due to the rapid emergence of a set of new technologies namely cloud computing, big data, smart mobile devices, analytics – combinations of which are changing all industries in different but fundamental ways. This is leading to the creation of new service models, new delivery models and often new business models. In my opinion, the Indian IT industry needs to play smart to leverage these trends to boost mind share and market share in global markets
NASSCOM will work to increase the impact the Indian IT industry can have on India’s growth. The world over, Indian IT firms are well regarded for having completed large, complex IT and transformation programmes for many large global corporations as well as governments in many countries However, in India there is tremendous appetite to use IT systems and there remains a big gap between ground realities and potential. For a variety of reasons, there is little traction despite strong appetite from buyers like Indian corporate groups, who are going global and require world-class processes as well as state and central governments looking to ease critical bottlenecks in key social areas like inclusion, health and education. There is a need to get all the stakeholders together on a platform to really thrash out this issue and arrive at new norms that work for everybody. NASSCOM is ideally suited to play a lead role in bringing various stakeholders together and create a ‘new consensus’
There are a large number of underpenetrated markets where Indian IT can make a significant impact (ASEAN countries, Africa) in the future. NASSCOM will work to create industry-wide consensus for some of the more attractive markets and focus on helping Indian IT expand their operations there

Q: What do you believe will be the trends driving the domestic IT-BPO market?

Indian IT can make a huge and meaningful impact on the domestic market. But this is not happening to the extent, we would like. The Indian IT-BPO industry,spearheaded by NASSCOM will be presenting a comprehensive position paper to the government, regarding catalysing the growth of the domestic market. The industry must make the domestic market a key priority. The government sector can also act as a spur for increased IT adoption – through sector reforms that push IT acceptance, NeGP programmes, and the UIDAI programme that creates large scale IT infrastructure and promotes corporate participation.

Q: What do you foresee for the IT-BPO industry in the future? What will be the foundation for the next phase of growth?

IT is expected to be a very powerful lever for change. NASSCOM expects tremendous headroom for growth in core and emerging markets. This is borne out of the fact that despite a very volatile environment from 2007 onwards, the IT-BPO industry has expanded at a CAGR of 17 per cent between 2007 and 2012. In order to achieve the Indian IT-BPO sector’s vision for 2020 — a revenue target of USD 225 billion — the industry will need to grow at a CAGR of 13 per cent from FY2013. The industry must identify what it can achieve next and set its heart and mind on attaining it. At the same time, and in order to ensure that start-ups and emerging organisations are also able to participate in the growth story and contribute to the momentum of the sector, it is important to provide them with support, mentorship and talent. The industry needs to map people with existing systems, compare the ecosystem with their existing structure, understand their gaps and address them efficiently and systematically, and help organisations cover new and untapped markets of Japan and the ASEAN.