By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter
The $150bn Indian IT industry is looking forward to more partnerships across the GCC region, in particular Qatar, a delegation from Nasscom, the global body of about 1,800 Indian companies in IT and Business Process Management industries said.
In a meeting held at the Qatar Chamber, members of the Nasscom delegation, headed by Chennai-based entrepreneur Maran Nagarajan, expressed their desire to work closely with companies from Qatar as they felt this country offers business opportunities in the IT sector.
The meeting, chaired by the Qatar India Business Council Chairman and prominent Qatari businessman Abdul Rahman al-Ansari, also featured a presentation on the giant leap India has made in the IT sector in a little over two decades.
Nagarajan, who heads Kaar Technologies (Chennai), which provides IT solutions to a large number of public and private businesses and activities across the world, including in Qatar, said the “days of customer-vendor businesses are well over and IT companies from India are looking forward to long standing industrial and business partnerships these days.”
He said each member of the delegation is committed to forging long-term business relations with local institutions, entities and business houses.
While introducing the Nasscom, he said more than 95% of the revenues of India’s IT industry is generated by the member companies of the forum.
“India has more than 15,000 business houses in its IT and related industries and the member companies are employing more than 3.5mn, including 1mn women IT professionals,” said Nagarajan.
He said companies from India are looking for expanding partnerships in e-commerce, consulting services, software products, software services, software development, web services, engineering services, offshore activities, animation and gaming among other activities.
“The cutting edge technologies that our companies are delivering are greatly appreciated across the world and nowhere is it felt more than in the outsourcing industry where more than 55% of the works overall is taking place in Indian companies, both in India and abroad.”
Nagarajan also pointed out that besides the 3.5mn people directly employed by the Indian IT industry, more than 10.5mn are indirectly supporting the requirements of India’s IT companies.
While expressing immense satisfaction at the interest shown by local businessmen who interacted with the team members, Nagarajan said they were overwhelmed by the encouraging response and interest of Qatar ICT Minister HE Dr Hessa Sultan al-Jaber to the activities of the Nasscom companies. The delegation met the Qatar minister on Tuesday.
“Besides the oil and gas, we understand that there is an amazing level of activities in this country, in such areas as health, research, education, sport, construction, telecommunications, transport, and hospitality among others,” said Nagarajan while extending a hand of friendship to the local companies to forge business partnerships with Indian companies in the IT sector.
At a presentation during the meeting it was pointed out that more than two-thirds of the IT revenues of India are from exports. Close to 60% of the revenues are coming from the US, 18% from UK, and 25% from the emerging markets, they said.
The members of the Nasscom delegation at a reception held at Qatar Chamber yesterday.
