India is driving global innovation: IBM

Bangalore, Dec 5 (UNI) India was developing itself as a driver of global innovation with the emergence of its domestic IT industry, which was among the fastest growing in the world, IBM Managing Director Shanker Annaswamy said today.

Speaking to mediapersons here from different parts of the world, he said India had emerged as a strategic region for IBM and it saw great opportunity in this exciting, high potential, hyper competitive market.

''India's people have become a source of innovation. MNCs, for whom the country had now become a favourite destination, are moving from labour-arbitrage to mission-critical innovation. The domestic companies are migrating up the value chain to offer high-end services, while there are some notable rural and indigenous innovations,'' Mr Annaswamy said.

IBM was contributing to the development of the Indian industry by sharing its own experience of transformation and growth into a globally integrated enterprise.

IBM had operations in 40 cities and 2,500 partners. Its employee strength had grown from 1,000 in 1997 to 43,000 in 2005, he said.

A similar transformation was being seen in the country's social fabric, with its growing 300 million plus middle-class population, responsible for producing a highly skillful brain power that had made the world sit and watch. It was producing an astounding 2.1 million new graduates annually, he said.

Mr Annaswamy said the growing consumerism, rapid urbanisation in tier two and three cities, rural development and technology impact had positioned the country in the forefront in the world. Radical transformation in the industry had seen broad-based growth and strong global aspirations that had resulted in Indian firms now going for global acquisitions.

He said hyper-growth and hyper-competition characterised the Indian IT market. IT spending was growing phenomenally. Hardware grew by 53 per cent, IT services by 34 per cent and software, in which the country was in the forefront, and the BPO grew by seven and six per cent respectively.

The transition was towards a solutions approach and the country was seeing a visible shift towards services.

The country saw large number of domestic players, MNCs and Indian offshore players compete for the domestic pie. There was intense war for talent with both domestic and foreign players trying every trick to win the 'hearts and minds', he added.

UNI RS GD KR DB2035