The late 2003 State Assembly elections in India were fought on the Acronym - BSP - the Bijli, Sadak, Pani issues. In India's National Language - Hindi, 'Bijli' means Electricity. 'Sadak' means Roads. 'Pani' means 'Water'. We hijack the same BSP acronym to explain a few broad trends affecting the IT Industry in India. We call these underlying events and trends individually as the 'B', 'S' and 'P' factors, collectively called the 'BSP' factors.

Down Arrow The 'P' Factors

Gray Arrow 'Protection of Intellectual Property'

Gray Arrow 'Plethora of Platforms'.

Gray Arrow 'Privacy Protection'

Gray Arrow 'Protectionist Pressures,Pushes and Pulls'

Gray Arrow 'Plunging Pricing Pressures'

Gray Arrow 'Protection of Intellectual Property'.

My son purchased a songs audio CD of the popular movie 'Kal Ho Na Ho' some time ago. He informed me regretfully that the audio CD has been produced to prevent it's usage on a computer's CD-ROM Drive and subsequent copying of song files. Music piracy causes billions of dollars of losses for the music industry. Legal battles are currently underway in the US on this free Content sharing and file copying phenomenon. There is a lot at stake for India, too since our Bollywood and music industry is the second largest in the world. Indian content producers (whether software content or music content) will need to strengthen their legal arsenal to protect their intellectual property worldwide.

The next 'P' factor is 'Plethora of Platforms'.

Indian IT companies face large number of choices for deciding technology platforms to provide solutions for their customers. Should they work with Microsoft .NET or SUN's Java Based J2EE Platform ? Should they ignore the fast growing Mobile and other Palmtop device customers ? Among the two competing cellular technologies GSM and CDMA in India, which ones should they work with ? There are many such difficult choices to be made.




Gray Arrow The next 'P' factor affecting the Indian IT industry is 'Privacy Protection'.

Europe already has a data privacy protection Act in place to ensure that any company wishing to outsource work outside Europe has to put privacy protection measures in place. A similar trend is also expected to in USA, Australia, Japan etc. THis would have implications on the type of outsourcing work that would come to countries like India. The no call telephone number list in the US has already attracted a large number of US residents, negatively affecting the call centre business here. Expect many more initiatives like this to happen. The popular Hindi movie 'Sarfarosh' had a negative character, Mirchi Seth who kept saying " Na..".(meaning 'No' in Hindi.) The US State of Indiana also said "India ?.. Na !" when they cancelled their outsourcing contract with TCS in November 2003.

Gray Arrow The next 'P' factor would be ' Protectionist Pressures, Pushes & Pulls'.

The Indian IT Industry evokes strong reactions today. Andy Grove, Intel Founder has warned that by 2010, Indian IT capacities would surpass that of the US. Till the US Elections get over by late 2004, there would be more protectionist pushes and pressures.

Gray Arrow The last of the 'P' factors for the IT industry would be 'Plunging Pricing pressures'.

Indian IT Companies have been used to declining Prices during 2003. This would be expected to continue with the continuous commodisation of IT products and services worldwide. The chief of one of the world's Top 5 ERP companies declared in Mumbai last month that their prices would continue to plunge. While this would be good news for consumers of the IT industry, it would indeed be a challenge for IT producers and companies to be able to sustain margins in the wake of increasing people costs and rupee appreciation.

Gray Arrow BSP - The 'B' Factors Square Separator The 'S' Factors