Bucking skills’ shortage, attrition, Indian IT industry goes digital

“The Indian IT industry is reinventing for digital. India is seen as a country with huge digital transformation potential globally. Digital business is the next growth engine,” KS Viswanathan, VP, Nasscom, the industry’s apex body, said here.

With digital business contributing over one-third of the revenue of global software majors like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies, even mid-size and smaller firms have adopted digital platforms to meet the demand from customers worldwide.

“While larger firms have adopted digital and are mentioning revenue from it in their annual reports, mid-tier and smaller firms are also adopting it (disruptive technology), which augurs well for the services-led industry,” Viswanathan noted.

Recovering from sluggish sequential growth in fiscal 2016-17 and 2017-18, the industry revved up this fiscal (2018-19) to meet the increasing demand for new services in the digital domain, spanning Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, blockchain, Cloud, data analytics or mining, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML) and robotics.

“As per global trends, businesses have to be data-driven for efficient and competitive advantage. Digital technologies like AI and ML are key for enterprises to leverage data in smart ways,” Srikanth Soundarajan, partner of city-based Venture East, said.

Accounting for 37 per cent share of the global outsourcing of software services, the Indian IT-BPM (business process management) industry is set to post $167 billion revenue for fiscal 2018-19 from $154 billion in fiscal 2017-18, including exports, registering around eight per cent annual growth.

The resilient industry has been harnessing newer technologies and re-skilling to sustain growth and be competitive. It has been focusing on intelligent operations like process and domain expertise, while marquee firms made strategic acquisitions to arm with digital technology and skilled talent across platforms for diverse verticals.

“As digital technologies reshape businesses, the industry has been upskilling, acquiring competencies through mergers and acquisitions or partnerships and building platforms and software products,” said Nasscom VC Keshav R Murugesh.

In the engineering and design ecosystem, too, many things are moving from services to products and products to platforms, thanks to digital innovation, talent pool and skill sets.

“Nasscom and the Indian government have signed an agreement with Japan this year to power its hardware with our software to make a difference to products,” Vishwanathan recalled.