Domestic (India) Software Market Challenges

We are working for overseas clients. We earn in dollars/ euros/pounds. We are helping people of developed countries to make their lives better. Recently, I have heard the story of one Indian Company who implemented traffic control and decongestion system in London. I am sure that each one of us has lots of stories like this to tell. Some of the terms like outsourcing, BPO, KPO etc. have become common words in our lives.
But there is a huge potential for IT Infrastructure and software requirements for the domestic market. I strongly believe that this market is not yet tapped completely. There are going to be lot of opportunities here as well. We have seen the mobile revolution here. The list of mobile companies, their subscribers is just increasing by leaps and bounds. Lots of foreign companies are investing their money. Lots of companies are starting their offices here. If you just look around, you can see the revolution or upward trend in every business areas. It can be anything from service providers to construction, infrastructure development, insurance and banking and so on. This is also applicable to hardware market. Lots of PCs, cells, laptops etc. are entering in the lives of common people. This scenario looks very promising. People (like me) who have experienced the recession in IT Industry would agree to this. But somehow this upward trend is not completely visible in domestic Software market. Of course it is definitely better than compared to previous 5-6 years.
There are lots of surveys/predictions available in the market. Everybody is just talking about the figures, which would be crossed by various domestic industries. Right from Automobile industry to health care and tourism industry, everything is going to grow tremendously. Some of the predicted figures are just unbelievable. Middle class person now has access to world class products in India only and that is also in affordable rates. People are willing to spend. But are the domestic companies willing to spend/invest in IT solutions? Do these companies have decided their IT roadmap for coming 10 years? Are these companies willing to consider India Software vendors? Are these companies clear about their IT requirements? Some of the companies have separate IT department. But do they enough talent/skills/bandwidth to understand their requirements and build custom solutions? …… I am sure that most of the answers to above mentioned questions would be negative…..So, what are the challenges to get positive answers for above questions.

Ø How much money we can save?
If you try to sell your product to any person, this is the first question he/she will probably ask. I am talking about the persons who are probably in their late fifties. These are the people who have struggled a lot and now reached to the topmost positions in the companies. These are the people who are actually running local companies. These are the key decision makers. When you have an opportunity to talk to them or to market one of your software product/solution, then be assured that you would have to answer this question. So, key point here is to understand their business. It is also necessary to understand their current IT investment. It is important to step into their shoes and see what would be their requirements. Once you have the enough data, then you need to apply some algorithms/formulae in order to come up with the total cost which would be saved. This figure is the starting point for any future dealings with that person. :)

Ø Okay, my company will save x amount if we buy your solution. But what are the other benefits?
To penetrate deeper into the India market, we need to convince them what are the benefits they would get. One needs to build lots of case studies/presentations in order to convince these decision makers. It is likely that these people are reluctant to mane any change in the patterns and practices followed in their organizations. They have solid reasoning as well for not to change. They will say that these patterns are being used since last 30-40 years, why should we change it now. Idea, here is to convince them that the world is changing. And with lots of advancement in communication and technology, these changes would help them in better decision making.

Ø Why should I buy from you?
Most of the domestic companies would buy products like SAP, oracle etc. These companies will spend lakhs of rupees in buying these products. But they will be little bit reluctant to but solutions from local software vendors. We need to convince them that we can deliver custom solutions what they want. We need to tell them that we know your business. We will give you local support 24 X 7.

Ø Requirements are not clear.
This is really tough tasks to get requirements from domestic customers. I had experienced this in the past. Some companies want to invest money in IT just because the funds have been allocated for the year. In this case, it will be highly difficult for Software people to get the requirements. Trick here it to stay calm and listen what they want. If they are not able to tell then we need to propose them their requirements. Of course this needs thorough understanding of their business. We need to propose them, which could be really used by these people.

Ø Traditional/ do not want to change Mindset
Some people are not at all willing to change or should I say adapt to the situation. If you face a person with this kind of mindset, then there is a problem. These people will say that why do we need computers? We are doing this since last so many years. We did not use laptops/ cell phones to do business! First of all, we need to make them comfortable to talk with us. Then you can say that “Listen, we were using bullock carts earlier. Everything was fine for us. Then we had trains and cars. We started traveling by cars/trains/planes. This is saving lot of time for us. And if we don’t use this now, then you will be far behind the race!”

Ø IT Road Maps
Most of the domestic companies will not have IT road map fixed for next years. These companies need to think on their road maps.

Ø Customized Products and Quality
Most of the off-the-shelf products are not directly suitable for these companies. We need to give customized solutions and better quality products. The quality is one of the important factors here. This is because these companies might have purchased software from local small vendors at some point of time. And chances are high that these companies were frustrated because of the poor quality work provided to them at cheap cost. We need to build trust relationship with them and ensuring them that they would get better quality solutions.

Cheers,
Amol Kulkarni.