India Inc. Sees Outsourcing Surging to Nearly 20% Annual Growth

Source: HinduBusinessLine
With anticipated recovery in IT spends and a positive outlook putting the sector on a high, Indian IT honchos said that achieving growth rates of 18-20 per cent in the coming years would be “quite possible”.

“It is possible for the Indian industry to move to a 20 per cent growth rate if we are able to overcome some constraints. In fact as the industry has set itself a target of $175 billion (in exports) by 2020, we will have to look at such growth rates,” Mr Ashank Desai, Founder of Mastek said.

However, India would have to move quickly on issues such as infrastructure, education, power among others, he added. Mr Desai also did not want to comment on the timeframe for the industry to go back to the 20 per cent growth numbers.

Most of the top industry representatives attending the summit seemed upbeat about industry growth trajectory.

Mr Ashutosh Vaidya, Senior Vice-President and Head of Wipro BPO, opined that a 20 per cent growth was “possible”. “I do not see any reason why it won’t happen. In the past, the industry has achieved 35-40 per cent growth. Over the last two years, due to the global economic downturn, the growth rates were lower but now there is a lot of headroom in areas such as BPO and the domestic market. This will help the industry to achieve strong growth,” he said.

Mr Arun Jain, Chairman of Polaris Software Lab, felt that the industry can look at higher growth in the range of 15-18 per cent in the next few years. “The market is beginning to open up, so unless there is something adverse, the growth rate will be high,” he said.

Nasscom has recently come out with its projection for the next financial year. India’s IT and BPO exports are projected to grow 13- 15 per cent in FY11 to $56-57 billion, the growth rate three times that of the current fiscal. This financial year, IT and BPO export revenues are expected to grow 5.5 per cent to $49.7 billion, placing it almost at the $50 billion milestone that the industry had been craving for. In FY10, the domestic market is expected to clock Rs 66,200 crore in revenue, 12 per cent higher than the preceding year.