FOR TECH COMPANIES, 2007 promises to be a windfall year with International Data Corporation, a premier global provider of market and industry intelligence, predicting a 21.5 per cent increase in India’s spending on information technology, pushing up the infotech investment to Rs 758.91 billion in 2007 in the country.

 

IDC, which collates experts’ data provided by 850 analysts in 50 countries, foresees “a major wave of IT investments in India.” The IDC report, titled India Domestic IT Market: Top 10 Predictions (http://www.idcindia.com), says the infotech investment trend is already visible "across banks, financial services institutions, telecom, manufacturing, government, resources, education and other industries... This is probably why India is the fastest-growing country by domestic IT spending in 2006 (22.4 per cent) and is forecast to remain so in 2007 (21.5 per cent) when it reaches 758.91 billion rupees.”

 

According to the Top 10 Predictions, compiled “from a global perspective” by 14 IDC industry experts, “2007 will be a year of intense hyper disruption in the IT industry, with major structural changes taking place along different industry vectors at once, all interacting with each other and, more importantly, accelerating each other. In 2007, small businesses will become big, more software will become services, more services will become software, business IT players will become more ‘consumer-ish’, and consumer players will become more business-like. These disruptions, and others, will force most market leaders out of their comfort zones and open up new opportunities to those that choose to surf these disruptions rather than stand against them.”

 

Analyzing the impact of these global churnings on the Indian market, the IDC report quotes Kapil Deo Singh, country manager of IDC, “These deep shifts in the global market place will surely have their implications on the Indian market, which when coupled with its high speed growth, will pose unique challenges. These challenges will be around managing the twin play of IT going deeper into already penetrated market segments and simultaneously exploring newer segments for growth to be sustained.”