Dr. S.C. Das
Abstract
It is very much significant that India’s overall export performance has become increasingly dependent on the software sector over the years. From a mere 5% of a $33 billion total Indian exports in 1996-97, during 2006-07 the IT exports accounts for a hefty 25% of the $120 billion total exports from India. The rapid growth in invisible receipts resulted in a sharp improvement in our trade balance. The working paper concentrates on different issues of software and services exports i.e., composition, direction, strengths and opportunities of software and services exports. The study also locates the basic advantages of India for software export industry i.e., vast and large skilled pool of human resources, quality and timely delivery, cost arbitrage and ability to take more and complex assignments. A breakup of the IT software exports by destination reveals that North America account for 67.7% of our exports; Europe 21.3 % and Japan 2 %. This implies that North America, Europe, Japan taken together for about 91 percent of our total exports. It was revealed that export baskets of the country mostly consisting software and services, IT enabled services and R/D services. The paper identified new opportunities for Indian software firm i.e., non- traditional service line, offshore delivery model, application outsourcing and custom application development etc. Further, concludes that for achieving progressive software export growth, the industry would need to advance on the value chain, move to Tier II /III cities to control cost etc., and the central /state governments should continue to play a proactive role in providing fiscal incentives, policy and other support for IT human resources and infrastructure development. At the end the author emphasis on the need to tap new service lines, focus on less explored geographies, target high potential verticals and tapping product centric opportunities.
Keywords : Offshore Spending, Delivery Models, Service Lines, ITES, Diversified Service.
View PDF