Mumbai:
Embedded software development, broadband networking
solutions, multimedia content management, bioinformatics
and health insurance are the emerging technologies identified
by Nasscom that could prove to be a goldmine for Indian
information technology companies.
 According
to a latest Nasscom-McKinsey survey, Indian IT companies
can aspire for a $635-billion export market by 2005, provided
they tap the emerging technologies and newer areas such
as Germany, France, Italy and Australia.
The survey lists the following growth areas:
Embedded systems: The growth of Internet technologies
and recent advances in embedded systems are driving the
penetration of smart devices. A significant opportunity
exists for the Indian IT industry both hardware and
software for providing complete solutions in this area.
Broadband networking solutions: Significant demand
for software development will emerge, as telecommunication
carriers shift to IP-based optical networks. Specifically
demand will be high for communication software.
Multimedia content management: Technological developments,
particularly Internet technologies, are bringing about
major changes in the global content provision industry.
Opportunities for the Indian IT industry exist in the
areas of implementation services for content management
solutions, deployment and support services on interactive
TV platforms, application development for set-top boxes,
database management and data-mining services.
Bioinformatics: Significant opportunities exist
for Indian software and IT-enabled services in this space.
The Indian IT industry can address opportunities in the
areas of automated genome analysis, modeling of protein
structures from primary sequences, creation and integration
of relational databases from unstructured pharmaceutical
and clinical data, and software development for molecular
modeling, besides IT-enabled services for data capture.
Health insurance portability and accountability:
The health insurance and portability and accountability
act is intended at streamlining operations of the US healthcare
industry. Indian companies can follow a four-pronged approach
in addressing the market, target the health insurance
sector for the larger share of HIPAA-related business,
address the large players in the healthcare industry with
implementation services, explore opportunities for partnership
with large healthcare software companies in the US and
target the market of small- and medium-sized healthcare
firms with a complete solution.
The study says that despite the current slowdown in the
IT industry, the long-term fundamentals of the Indian
software industry remain robust. It adds that the biggest
area of opportunity is new services like business process
outsourcing, R&D services and Internet-related services.
These offer a potential of $250 billion by 2005.
Small and medium businesses will have a potential of $150
billion and new geographical areas and new verticals offer
a market potential of $120 billion and $115 billion each,
it said. The study also identifies utilities, healthcare,
retail, transportation, new services, mobile enablement,
security and business continuity services as areas the
Indian software sector should focus on.
The study, previewed at Nasscom 2002, also suggested five
short-term steps the Indian software sector needs to take
to beat the downturn. These include new customer acquisition,
key account management, identifying and capturing new
white space opportunities, pursuing alliance opportunities
with system integrators,
defining and pursuing a systematic merger and acquisition
agenda and instituting a stronger performance ethic to
debottleneck growth.
Nasscom and McKinsey are currently working on a revised
version of the 1999 report, with the aim of helping Indian
companies rework their strategies to sustain growth in
the downturn.
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