India is emerging as a Global IT superpower because of its high quality software human resources. However, the growth has been limited to a few major cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi-NCR but it is gradually growing around other tier-II cities like Lucknow, Jaipur and Chandigarh etc. Indian Software Industry is estimated to be worth USD 1.2 billion.. The Software Industry has succeeded in converting this comparative advantage to increasing exports. According to the report of Ministry of Information & Technology, Indian software and services exports including ITES-BPO is estimated at US$ 40.3 billion in 2007-08, as compared to US$ 31.4 billion in 2006-07, an increase of 28.3 per cent.

The IT services exports is estimated to be US$ 23.1 billion in 2007- 08 as compared to US$ 18.0 billion in 2006-07, showing a growth of 28.7 per cent in 2007-08. Export revenues from ITES-BPO are estimated to grow from US$ 8.4 billion in 2006-07 to US$ 10.9 billion in 2007-08, a year-on-year growth of over 29.8 per cent.

The US and the UK remain the key markets for Indian IT-BPO exports (excluding hardware), accounting for nearly 80 per cent of the total exports. This comes as no surprise as these two markets account for the largest share of worldwide technology spends.

Business Process Outsourcing

With the BPO going strong for the past few years, the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) - which may be called the high end Business Process Outsourcing- is still at a nascent stage of development in India despite of having highest number of technically qualified manpower of the world. This evolution of the KPO market will drive trends that will ensure very high-value services in outsourcing. These opportunities in the KPO will enable the Indian market to be an integral part of global value and knowledge chain.

With a large pool of skilled manpower – doctors, engineers, chartered accountants, management professionals, lawyers, research analysts - India would be able to add value to the global KPO business and its high-end processes like investment research, valuation research, patent drafting, patent validity searches, legal and insurance claims processing, online teaching, media content development and supply etc. Skilled manpower and multi lingual capabilities combined with the advantages of lower costs are key factors deciding the future of India as a global frontrunner in KPO.

Outflow of IT professionals is one of the major problems that software companies in India were facing few years back. But the current global recession has resulted into job cuts in US and it has started working towards the competitive advantage to India in the form of “reverse brain drain”. The million dollar question is whether India is ready to accept the crowd of job seekers or leaning towards entrepreneurship. The recent Satyam incident is an eye opener for our software industry. The need of the hour is to go ahead towards the path of innovation and development of intellectual property by using our skilled manpower.

Our IT industry has immense potential to attract foreign investments and contribute towards economic and social growth of the country. Information Technology has become supplement to our entire education system. A good number of our software companies are working towards development of e-learning solutions from primary to higher education level. It also has enabled the access of quality education in small and medium cities. For example, the distance learning courses by universities like IGNOU & NALSAR through e-learning portal.

However, the few questions for which we all need to work out are the stressful working environment, the high attrition rates, imbalance in professional and personal front. The answers of these questions would lead to more innovations and more productivity from our talented pool of IT professionals. Finally, having said that, these are few thought provoking questions which are left to be answered from all of us.