Forget dotcoms, IT-enabled services are the future

New Delhi, September 19: While the dotcom hype has now turned to cynicism, the next wave of hope appears to be IT-enabled services. Accord...

New Delhi, September 19: While the dotcom hype has now turned to cynicism, the next wave of hope appears to be IT-enabled services. According to speakers at a NASSCOM conference today, the total business opportunity in this area is in the region of 18 billion 8212; this figure, of course, originates from the Nasscom-McKinsey report.

Atul Nishar, XXXXXXX, said that 2.2 million new jobs will be created in the IT sector as a whole, and half of these will be in the IT-enabled services sector.

IT enabled services include a broad range of IT based decision making and information delivery services for a customer. According to a background paper circulated by NASSCOM, currently Call Centres and Animation Accounting constitute almost 85 per cent of IT-enabled services. According to estimates, quoted by the report, it is expected that by 2008, the overall market will grow to approximately 142 billion. While Human Resource DevelopmentHRD occupies the top slot as far as value creation potential in IT-enabled services in India is concerned at 44 billion Customer Relations, Finance and accounting , Remote sensing follow a close second.

N.V. Tyagarajan, CEO of GE Capital International Services said it was important to understand that IT-enabled services are not just call centres and medical transcription 8212; this is the current craze in India. He said that IT-enabled services includes high-end decision making as well. Thus, for instance, if proper software is developed, it may be possible for a bank in the US place its entire financial analyses team in India, say. Thus, if a customer in the US wanted a car loan, he/she could apply for it on the web, and the actual decision to grant/not grant the loan could be taken in India. This, Tyagarajan said, was a good example of doing high-end work on the IT-enabled service sector.

According to Marc Vollenweider, Principal, McKinsey amp; Co, in comparison to other countries in the Asia Pacific region 8212; which includes New Zealand and Japan 8212; India scores the highest as far as the quality of the workforce is concerned. One of the major advantage of the domestic workforce is knowledge of the English language. Tyagarajan added that the sheer number of people who graduate in India makes it a very fertile ground for hiring talented staff.