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 Milind Tamhane, Vice President, ITS Sales, Digilink, forecasts better times ahead for Indian SCS market led by e-governance projects
While the Indian IT industry was not shielded from the economic downturn, the IT and ITES sector grew 10 percent during FY2009. And at a time when the enterprise hardware market saw a decline of 25 percent in FY2009 (compared to the 25 percent growth in FY2008), the demand for networking grew 15 percent to reach a market size of $690 million. While the structured cabling service (SCS) market did suffer, it did better than other categories, posting a 13 percent growth, totaling Rs 1,325 crore.
Steady demand from sectors such as government and education as well as from increasing deployments of datacenters, IP applications and virtualization solutions contributed to the growth of SCS market. The need for networks to match the number-crunching capabilities currently offered by microprocessors also added to it.
I believe that as we move in to 2010, the Indian SCS market is better positioned on a high growth path, than it ever was. Recent initiatives by the government—UID, SWAN, defense backbone connectivity, national GRID and ESIC—will greatly boost demand for SCS.
IT channels
In years to come, we will see a lot more new channels opening up such as retail and online channels. We have already witnessed organized retail enter the IT arena and will soon see the online channel get stronger. These new channels will definitely take some part of the business currently governed by the traditional channel.
The Internet user base in India is growing at a fast pace and the B2C e-commerce figures are rising. Globally, the online channel is responsible for a sizeable amount of business and is a very popular medium of sales as well as marketing.
The ISP channel is a new avenue opening up in India. Today, in addition to delivering bandwidth, ISPs are also bundling hardware—not only in the home and SOHO segment but also at the SMB and enterprise level. Many ISPs are assuming the role of system integrators. I believe the role of ISPs will expand in the coming years and they will provide end-to-end solutions.
The traditional channel will have to move a level up. Managing the logistics of the products will be the domain of the distributor and channel partners will have to provide significant value add. The year 2010 will see channels morph into true services and solutions providers.
Way ahead
Our key priorities for 2010 are to sustain the high visibility of our brand, to strengthen our unique channel distribution system and to expand the brand globally. We are investing a lot in further ramping up our already extensive channel. We plan to announce schemes and incentive programs for our partners that will ensure steady sales. Partner profitability and growth is one of our key priorities.
We have introduced new datacentre solutions to our product mix, as we want to get into the enterprise business segment. We have also launched multimedia faceplates that can be customized to cater to customers’ unique need. Over the next two quarters, we plan to launch many more new products. |