With the world economy still “uncertain”, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), on Tuesday, said that the fundamentals of the industry remained strong, although there was a need to monitor its performance over the next two quarters.
“We will watch the next two quarters before revising any forecast as the global economic environment is uncertain. The fundamentals of our industry, however, are very strong,” said Som Mittal, President of Nasscom.
He was addressing reporters on the sidelines of “Surge 2012”, a one-day seminar organised by Nasscom.
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Last year, the IT industry created 200,000 net jobs. However this year, Mittal said, it would only create 160,000 to 180,000 jobs – an indication of the economic slowdown.
When asked about IT companies making a foray into new countries, Mittal, whose term was extended till early 2014 on Monday, said that natural growth was slowly picking up in Europe, Middle East and Latin America.
“Newer geographies such as Latin America are important for short-term opportunities, but in the long-term, we have to expand into areas where the need will be higher,” he said. With “leveraging IT for growth” as the centrepiece of discussion, the conference had panel discussions that were aimed at helping small and medium businesses thrive in today’s economy. In his welcome address, Krishnakumar Natarajan, Vice-Chairman, Nasscom, said that increased usage of technology would help the industry grow. “Continued adoption of different forms of technology such as mobile assistance for business is something will help us.
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Upgrading unique services and improving their quality will foster growth of the Indian IT sector,” Mr. Natarajan said. According to research firm McKinsey, the Indian IT industry is likely to grow nearly three times to reach $300 billion by 2020.
“Tell me any one industry which has grown so sharply in the last fifteen years, very few industries have such large headroom to grow,” Mr. Natarajan said.