IDC urges industry to brace for boom times round the corner 

IDC India has urged the industry to be prepared to leverage on the boom times
round the corner. Predicting the worst to be over, IDC pointed out that IT
spending is already on the uptake with the first quarter of this fiscal showing
encouraging trends.

Speaking about the surge in spending at the 15th ICT industry briefing
session Directions 2003, Pradeep Gupta, MD, IDC India said, "Analyzing the
growth patterns over the last forty years, we see an upsurge after every
downturn in the economy.

The rebound is round the corner and the imperative now is to be prepared to
leverage on the new opportunities presented by the improved economy."

Gupta outlined the areas, which would see accelerated growth in the next
couple of years. Integrating different enterprise applications and creating a
seamless world would be a huge opportunities in the years to come with the
market valued at an estimated $ 20 billion by 2005. The growth of mobile devices
and applications is inevitable as the world goes wireless. The mobile e-business
opportunity has been pegged at $ 40 billion by 2005. New architecture such as
rack or blade servers, which would see layers of application, will see a huge
demand. 9/11 proved to be a huge wake-up call as far as security issues were
concerned and enterprises are now in a frenzy to protect their data.

An interesting analysis of leadership qualities required for the post-rebound
scenario has pegged customer service at the highest end of the spectrum with
brand relevance pegged at the end of the spectrum. This leads to the conclusion
that the rebound period has the potential to throw up new leaders and legends.

Dane Anderson VP, Computing products and Internet, IDC Asia-Pacific indicated
that the growth in the Asia Pacific region would be fueled by the Internet.
E-business would be at the heart of the rebound and there is an urgent need for
businesses to respond to the Networked Knowledge Economy that we have arrived
at. Integration and collaboration would be key to success as a new phase of
expansion begins.

The key factor to drive the growth in India would be the BPO opportunities.
Indian companies would ramp up capacity dramatically to meet the demands. While
call centers are placed at the lower end of the value chain, BPO functions,
which are critical to the business functioning of an enterprise, are at the high
end of the value chain. Sujit Baksi, CEO, HCL e-Serve, said that the Indian BPO
scenario is overcrowded and that there are strong possibilities of a shake-out.
There has got to be sustained investments and only those with deep pockets are

expected to survive in the business. It would become important to focus on
both the domestic and international market. Baksi pointed out that it was
equally important to micro-manage operations in a business where margins were
wafer thin.

An analysis of India's IT sector would remain incomplete without the
inevitable comparison with China. Ravi Sangal, President, IDC India said that
China does not present a threat in the immediate future although India did need
to keep its act together and focus on issues like quality IT education, reducing
costs and improving productivity and evolve a facilitating policy and
infrastructure to attract investments.

Cyber News Service

(CNS)