“2017 is going to be a volatile year for the Indian IT industry,” says Sanchit Vir Gogia, Chief Analyst and CEO, Greyhound Research. “The pace of technological changes is very high and it will lead to substantial job cuts. The companies will try to be a lot leaner,” predicts Gogia.
Indian IT services companies have been facing competition from upstart players with highly specialised skill sets based in advanced markets, especially in areas such as cloud services and analytics. The cash-rich Indian IT companies are responding to this by acquiring companies overseas and thereby enhancing capabilities. Wipro spending nearly $1 billion in acquisitions last year is a case in point. In 2017, we are likely to see big boys of the Indian IT industry loosening their purse strings to make large acquisitions. “They will look at companies with sizeable revenues,” says Gogia.
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Absolutely 2017 will be about learning and less about drawing a line in the sand in terms of market-level positioning on areas such as cloud services and analytics. And this kind of a strategy could be the differentiating lever that winning IT companies will be looking for in the long term (12-18 mos)