The government on Tuesday said Indian IT industry should vie for more than the targeted five per cent global marketshare by 2008 from the current two per cent keeping in view the advantages of large population, low average age of IT professionals and strong skill sets as well as cost competitiveness.
"We enjoy advantage of extensive skill sets, competitive cost, and our main asset is over one billion population with the average age of IT workers at just 26 years. With all these, our global marketshare in IT is just two per cent while the target is to achieve five per cent by 2008. I believe it is only natural that we should aim much higher, Minister of State for IT and Communications Su Thirunanavukkasar said in New Delhi while inaugurating IndiaSoft, 2004.
While observing that to achieve the same, India would have to make efforts in areas of outsourcing, administration and finance, he advised India IT companies to move up the value chain to tackle the backlash from the US.
"I advise Indian corporates to concentrate on high value addition and analytical based BPOs and not just on call centres as outsourcing of such jobs hit the poor in these countries and backlash is a natural consequence", he said.
A major area of concern is that more than 60 per cent of our software exports are destined to the US. This has to change. "We have to explore new markets," he said adding even within India there is scope for outsourcing.
'India shining' image (in the IT sector) has to be spread to new regions like South East Asia, Latin America, Africa, Confederation of Independent States and the Middle East countries, he said.
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