THE $$$$100,000,000,000$$$$ OPPORTUNITY IN IT

CREATING INDIA’S INDIGENOUS ICONIC IT PRODUCTS & IPR

So far India has been known for outsourcing and client oriented IT work. iSPIRT, the Indian Software Products Industry Roundtable – a software product industry think tank – set out to change this by catalyzing the growth of  indigenously produced software products and Indian IPR!

iSPIRT has produced a study “The first Product Industry Monitor report” analyzing India’s software products sector. It concludes:

• “India has the potential to build a USD 100 Billion software product industry by 2025, contributing significantly to the nation’s current account.
• Resolute and purposeful action by the two keystakeholders: industry and government” is required.
• “The entire ecosystem – product entrepreneurs,  angels,  VCs, government be aligned” to realise this goal.
• Lot of senior talent from MNCs is starting software product companies–close to 40% of founders come from an MNC.

The press release is quoted in full below as every point deserves to be widely publicised:

“Unlike  many  other  sunrise  sectors  which  are  predicted  to  fuel  the  growth  of  tomorrow’s  Indian  economy,  the  software  product  industry  has  all  the  fundamental  requirements  in  place  to  succeed. 

Some  of  the  factors  that  can  propel  software  product  industry’s  growth  in  India  is  the  rich  skill  leadership  that  the  country  already  has  in  the  IT  sector,  aspiration  for  entrepreneurship  that  exists  among  India’s  youth  particularly  in  the  IT  (software)  space,  established  vibrant  software  eco‐system,  existence  of  ‘soft  infrastructure’,  mobile  proliferation,  commoditization  of  computing  hardware  and  the  advent  of  cloud  computing  have  made  connectivity  and  computing  capability  nearly  ubiquitous  across  India.

Further,  emergent  trends  in  the  global  technology  space  are  working  in  India’s  favor.

India  is  currently  going  through  a  period  of  ‘Combinatorial  Innovation’.  Combinatorial  innovation  makes  it  possible  for  small  entrepreneurial  teams  to  develop  complex  business  applications  quickly.  India  has  proved  its  combinatorial  innovation  at  work  in  the  UID  project  besides  a  host  of  SaaS  success  stories  by  Indian  origin  companies.

The  new  SaaS  markets  that  are  being  created  are  very  large  and  amount  to  a  USD  600  billion  global  opportunity  (out  of  the  total  USD  1.2  trillion  dollar  opportunity  for  software  products).  For  the  first  time,  Indian  SaaS  product  companies  are  part  of  this  emerging  market  opportunity  from  the  beginning  and  some  early  winners  are  starting  to  emerge.

iSPIRT  believes  that  fast  growing  domestic  market  requirements  will  also  aid  the  growth  of  India’s  Software  product  industry  in  the  days  to  come. 

The  domestic  market  for  software  products  is  expected  to  grow  at  14%,  almost  three  times  the  global  growth  rate. 

A  good  part  of  this  increased  demand  for  software  products  will  come  from  the  SME  sector  and  India’s  growth  engine  and  socially  significant  sectors  such  as  healthcare  and  education  that  are  struggling  to  scale  up  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  growing  nation.

…To  build  momentum  we  need  a  string  of  positive  outcomes  –  substantial  VC  investments,  M&As  and  IPOs  –  that  will  give  the  industry  much  needed  validation  and  a  boost  of  confidence.

At  this  crucial  juncture  in  this  journey,  it’s  very  important  for  the  entire  ecosystem  –  product  entrepreneurs,  angels,  VCs,  government  –  to  be  aligned.”

End quotation in full  from Press Release.

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Waving the Magic Wand!

An Indian invention Rohildev’s RHLvision, which can help people operate gadgets through thumb/ hand gestures, funded through the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo was invited to TechCrunch CES Hardware Battlefield in America to showcase the unique product.

Um, TechCrunch CES Hardware battlefield is not a battlefield, totally metaphoric, it is about supporting “the best hardware start-ups in the world”.

Here’s the other good news: RHLvision raised US$200,000 through Indigeogo, only the second Indian company to do so.

Hmm..a good place to go for tech start-ups from India struggling to make it. It seems a way around regulatory and other obstacles to setting up a “brick and mortar” company with embedded technology.

RHLvision has made waves elsewhere too, in Vienna to be precise.

Seriously, India is fast moving towards creating indigenous IPR in embedded technologies, something John Chambers had said India should gear up for, and I had quoted him in my work “2001 Can India Overtake China” as follows “The influential economic daily The Economic Times reported that John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, said this on embedded technology as the next frontier of growth as he exhorted India to take the leadership of the next IT – driven Industrial Revolution, during his January 2001 visit to New Delhi: “You don’t realise how many different areas the Internet technology would spawn. Every electronic device would be connected to the Internet. And each of these devices will have different software to run applications on them…”.

Product Nation in India is supporting tech start ups. It would be good if they joined up with such international platforms.

Never heard of TechCrunch before but glad I have now – everything about this event is about innovation, from the support of the world’s largest crowdfunding platform to the showcasing and rewarding of tech start-ups. Indigegogo is about making what you love and support happen, anyone can contribute to support a dearly loved cause.

More Indian companies are realising the need for IP creation

Until this happens, India will never get out of the morass of shrinking manufacturing sector, low-end exports with relatively low value addition, and falling global competitive advantage. Product Nation is also actively working towards creating Indian products and IPR.

‘Indian companies need to focus on IP creation’

Money quote:

The “dream of exponential gains will be the next wave from India, says Krishna ‘Kittu’ Kolluri, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates Inc (NEA), that has committed capital to the tune of US $ 8.5 billion”….

We can do it!

Indian startups are making big news. We’ve all heard of recent acquisitions of new -tech IT companies like Eyelabs and others.  It is interesting that many start-ups have been started by former employees of R & D Centres opoened by MNCs in India. This is a great development as it shows there is a trickle out effect of MNC R & D centres. We had been persistently advocating this including in our High-Tech Forum.  Shows that there is no stopping a good idea.

Big thanks to Product Nation and iSPIRT, first rate think tank and platform for the IT software industry and to the members of our Forum –Shri Sharad Sharma, Shri Avinasha Raghav, Shri Kunal Bajaj – for re-focusing attention on the need for Indian home-grown products with Indian IPR, rather than the body-shopping model which does not lead to indigenous innovation in the same way. This has forced other entities to focus on indigenous innovation and Indian products.  Indians are on the move!

But we still have a long way to go, as India still “has an abysmal record in creating software products — estimated to account for just $2 billion in the $100 billion Indian IT  industry”.

“Indian start-ups draw big clients, investors” Business Line, Feb 12, 201 Venkatesh Ganesh, Bangalore, February 11:

A new breed of Indian start-ups that stormed into the technology industry with innovative solutions is beginning to attract the attention of large enterprises as well as investors. Ventures such as Kayako Infotech, Knowlarity Communications and Seclore Technology stand out in the crowded IT world with their services, and now boast of Fortune 500 companies as clients….”

WILL NEW ELECTRONICS POLICY HELP DOMESTIC HARDWARE SECTOR TO TAKE OFF

Posting some articles in the context of the extremely dynamic National Policy on Electronics, being implemented by a host of stellar bureaucrats in the Department of Electronics, not to mention their holistic approach in having an R & D foundation to this policy.

The question raised in these articles are: are India’s fiscal environment and eco-system conducive to greater domestic production in this highly competitive, high-tech, fast-changing sector?

India receives Rs 65,000 crore investment proposals for semiconductor and electronics manufacturing business; By ET Bureau | 4 Feb, 2014

Fresh attempt to boost domestic manufacturing of electronics may not attract hi-tech factories; Shelley Singh, ET Bureau Jan 19, 2014, 04.00AM IST

Local hardware companies find it tough to bag defence project; Jochelle Mendonca, ET Bureau Dec 17, 2013, 04.00AM IST