Software Products : Untapped Opportunities

We call ourselves a software giants or superpower or a great softpower. It boosts up the egos of the many middle class Indians. For media the only perhaps 'good news' they choose to print.

No doubt Indian IT Industry has transformed the mindset of India. It helped Indian government to get out of control and inspector raj at least in some fields and now spreading to more. Lot of money was coming into the country using the boys and girls coming out of colleges which came up around 1970's in private sector (which was derogatorily named as 'mushrooming'). IT sector has created a large number of practical skill training private sector companies which transform ordinarily educated students into human capital which creates (and therefore earns) wealth from the global economy.

But still Indian IT Industry is a small part of world GDP (about 2%). It is also partly because Indian IT Industry mostly depends on outsourcing from foreign countries. Indian Govt. and therefore private sector have not created a large domestic market, for e-applications.

Another vital deficiency is not having good, globally competitive software products from India. Though we talk highly of IIT's, IISc, Indian lab like DAE, DRDO, CSIR, ISRO etc., the software product from India is very low. None of these agencies generate commercialisable software product. Most of them use foreign made computers and licensed software products! Therefore, India's share in world trade of $180 billion software product market (annual!), is just 0.2%. (Please read Mr. Subhash Menon's - Chairman of the Product Forum of NASSCOM - interview to TOI on 25.7.07).

My job here is not to lament about it or to exhort the nation to become a 'superpower' soon (I don't believe in the concept of superpower. We need superior performance! Not just potential to talk about!)

Mr Menon has rightly brought out institutional constraints.

I see in this an opportunity for some daring entrepreneurs. I am aware of the problems with banks and venture capitalists for small people. But IT sector loans are better. Big Industries may not enter into software product now till they see a big market. (It is a chicken and egg problem). Therefore if some of you who are small in size venture into some software products and network between yourselves to create a size and also bring in different skill sets, you can create a few products to sell in a global market - even a small part. You can network also with individuals from IIT's, IISc, labs etc (especially the younger students or newly joined persons) and also from other colleges (1500 engineering and some 800 MBA colleges) nearby. It may be a garage operation to begin with. Commercial markets are in security surveillance and supply chain management for small institutions and industries domestically. Globally there are large number of opportunities ranging from financial to security sectors to medical. I am aware of a young professional in Delhi who developed brain imaging software with initial US know-how and sold his company to big hospital chain.

Don't think that you should do everything as 'Made in India'. Get global partners too. Do even joint venture software products. In addition to USA, look for persons from smaller countries like Israel, Ireland, Netherlands. Switzerland etc for partnerships. Once you are commercial, you need not struggle to scale up. Sell off the company for a fairly big sum to best bidder - anywhere in the globe.

Yes many of you, who have some brain power to spare have a good global opportunity you can make wealth. Also the process make India proud by increasing the global share of Indian software product from say 1% to 2% !