well the title should have given some sort of a picture regarding the next set of words … well it all started with an article that i had come across in The Hindu regarding the IT industry and its grapple with the current market scenario ..Well being a software professional myself i am in certain ways appalled by the givings of the article ,as manifold insights were touched upon,which directly or indirectly affected the giants in the industry .The various aspects that were expected to bring this giant( IT industry ) down, ended up wizzing past without a scrape, while a lot of other factors actually led the giant to change course .In the words to follow i will be quoting , excerpts from the article interspersed with my own understanding of the scenario .
To start with ,the appreciating,would incite a lot of perspectives ,depending on the understandings of the interpretor .One sector would see the rupee strengthenin and go right out in bursting crackers ,to theatrically herald the shining of the India of tomorrow . On the other side we would have the IT giants sitting around with their hands over their heads and counting their losses .Well India being a diverse country has never been short of excitement ,however one might at times seem to wonder what exactly would result in an equitable environment for all.
Lets leave the section of India bursting crackers out of this article ,and look more into the other side,which is the woes of the IT industry.To start with 2007 has not quite been the best year for the IT boys.Cutting margines ,underperforming quarter results,tightening their belts et all constitute a major sector of the discourse for this year for them .Now what is the picture in the frame got to do with all this ?For one as we all would know by now that the invoice of the transactions being stamped in dollars is the front runner as far as the cause of the corellation of apreciating rupee and IT profits are concerned .Now coming to think of it ,one would see that an appreciating ruppee is caused essentially due to a booming economy.Now the IT prowess could claim to be a good part of the cake as far as the indian economy is concerned ,and as far as inflows of foreign currency is involved .Thus further fomenting more FDI’s and and more inflow of the green bills ( dollars).There fore putting it in lay terms IT ( in some way )->appreciating ruppee ->IT woes .
mmm .. well the above observation might seem a bit off the rhetoric but does hold some factor of truth.Well if thats the case ,what exactly could we attribute to the underperformance of the IT majors in India in 2007.Could it be that they were just not prepared enough for this sudden turn of events ( which in some way they were resonsible for).
Well ,now i would be quoting some of the statements by influential people in the Inidan IT sector ( excerpts from the Hindu article).
“the rising rupee is likely to hit Indian mid size software providers because of their thin margins .margins are impacted to the extent of 0.5 to 0.6 percent for every rupee increase against the dollar,depending on the business mix” official of satyam computers.
“As part of the strategy to offset the impact of the appreciation of the Indian rupee ,we are increasing our employee utilisation levels ,and we were able to successfully further increase our global utilization rates from 63 to 65 %” official of cognizant technologies.
There was also a mention of sub prime crisis ,how ever this crisis has not quite lobbied around the It garments and so havent quite affected their appetite drastically ( perspectve also in consonant with TCS perspective).
Chandrasekharan from cognizant also states that 92 % of their clients do not expect their overall budget to decline in 2008 .Now thats mellifluous isnt it 
.
What exatly is new about the giants approach to this twist of events ?
for one the giants have been working on unconventional business models ,which is evident from the aqusitions made by the various giants during 2007( as rightly put forth in the Hindu article).The highlightable points in the aquisitions mainly include long term contracts( to the effect of 7 to 10 year contracts ) and aquisitions of property or development centres in europe ,souh America.,EMEA and china.
Another area where these It majors have been vesting importance is in the development of IP based products sector apart from the service oriented sector.Innovative new solutions and niche solutions concerning experties in newer technologies has also been the need of the hour.Thus these IT firms seem to be taking the road ,which rests their head quarters in India ,and champion the diaspora of numerous development centres abroad .Thus “global players ” will be a phrase we would be seeing a lot in the papers of 2008.With the above said ,the prospects for 2008 seems to be pretty bright and the big shots in the giants( IT industries) seem to be pretty optimistic and rest assured .So this is considered more to be a period of evolution where in the industries would have to adapt to the changing markets and come out as survivours to once again carve the markets of tommorrow ..
Until then ……well fingers crossed :d
