Reinventing Indian It ; Sure, Their Revenues and Profits Are Still Surging, but Indian It Vendors Have Realised That Their Linear Business Model-More Code Jocks Is Equal to More Revenues-Is Under Threat. Result: They Are Reinventing Themselves Before It's Too Late.

Summary

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It's a rather windy January morning in Bangalore, with a slight nip in the air. But inside the glass-and-chrome Corporate Block's J.R.D. Tata Auditorium, on Infosys Technologies' manicured campus on the city's outskirts, it's all smiles and sunshine as Nandan Mohan Nilekani, the company's 51-year-old CEO & MD, takes centrestage to enact what has become the most awaited quarterly spectacle in the it industry: Announcement of the tech giant's quarterly results. Once again-as for almost 16 quarters since the tech winter of 2002- Nilekani is wearing a broad smile. It has been yet another stellar quarter. Infosys has clocked 45 per cent growth in revenue in the October-December quarter compared to the same period the previous year. The bottom line has performed even better; it has surged a staggering 51.5 per cent to Rs 983 crore. And things look so good, Nilekani says, that the company is revising full-year guidance upwards-it will hit the $3-billion (Rs 13,500-crore) mark in revenues come end of March this year, and if it continues at the same pace of growth by April 2009, it will be $6-billion (Rs 27,000- crore) big.

A couple of days later in Mumbai, the usually phlegmatic CEO and MD of India's largest it company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Subramanian Ramadorai, 62, is all smiles too, as he announces his company's quarterly numbers. TCS becomes the first Indian it company to hit the billion-dollar revenue mark in a single quarter. Its revenues for the third quarter are up 41 per cent and net profit by 45 per cent. Back in Bangalore, the third company that completes the ruling triumvirate of Indian it, Wipro, announces equally spectacular results: Revenues are up 45 per cent and the bottom line, 41 per cent.

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Reinventing Indian It ; Sure, Their Revenues and Profits Are Still Surging, but Indian It Vendors Have Realised That Their Linear Business Model-More Code Jocks Is Equal to More Revenues-Is Under Threat. Result: They Are Reinventing Themselves Before It's Too Late.

As is evident, things couldn't be better with Indian it. According to Nasscom, the industry lobby, Indian it exports (including it-enabled services, ITEs) will touch $29.4 billion (Rs 1,32,300 crore)-a 26 per cent growth over 2005-06. And if this trend continues, the industry may well rake in $60 billion (Rs 2,70,000 crore) by 2010-a number considered very ambitious when a Nasscom- McKinsey report first talked about it in 2005. "Barring a geo- political seismic shock or totally unforeseen event, the Indian it industry will coast comfortably at close to 30 per cent growth rates for the next three years at least," declares Sudip Nandy, Chief Strategy Office, Wipro.

So, why is Business Today hell-bent on playing spoilsport by talking about a need to reinvent Indian it? Because, impressive as the numbers are (the industry's compounded annual growth rate for the last five years works out to 26 per cent), they don't tell the whole stor...

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