Bangalore, Indias Silicon Valley, is on a high growth path enormously aided by the reform measures and a vibrant economy. Today, top-notch companies in integrated chip design, communication software, system software and world renowned R&D centers have made Bangalore the fourth largest technology cluster in the world. Besides being the IT capital of India, it has in its fold 612 MNCs, 66 global fortune 500 companies, 1,566 IT companies and 50% of Indias SEI CMM level 5 companies. The article discusses how IT and ITES have helped Bangalore develop into a major IT destination. Economic
development is characterized by an increase in the share of the services in the
GDP and total employment. This trend tends to increase the international trade
in services. Many of the fastest growing sectors are services like telecommunications,
health care, finance and software development. The share of services in world
trade and investment has been increasing. Following global trend, India has also
witnessed a boom in service exports in the recent years.
India
is now home to homegrown billion-dollar companies run by the million dollar wage
earners. Now India is the fourth largest economy in the world in terms of Purchasing
Power Parity (PPP), 44 million high income house holds, 300 million middle class
and adds 1.5 million cell phone users every month, 3.63 million PC and 1 million
passenger car every year!
Exports
of software and IT-enabled services recorded a strong growth of 34.4% to reach
$17.2 bn in 2004-05. Notwithstanding the increasing competitive pressures, India
remains an attractive source of software exports because of low cost of operations,
high quality production, and skilled manpower. Additionally, a favorable time
zone difference helps organizations to run internal operations and render customer
service round the clock. India's software industry has progressively enhanced
its market share in global IT spending from 1.5% in 2000-01 to an estimated 2.2%
in 2004-05. Domestic software, ITES and BPO markets are growing at 30.7% and exports
have grown at the rate of 37% during 1999-2005 as against the target of 34.7%. |
