Tech Companies Turn To India For GrowthTech Companies Turn To India For Growth

Casting off the tired and misguided stereotype of a country full of inexpensive programmers, India and its resilient and broad-based economy are attracting scores of small and mid-sized IT firms eager to join global tech firms in penetrating one of the world's few growth markets.While traditional growth markets are languishing, India is home to thousands of businesses that are continuing to expand their presence across the globe in financial services, manufacturing, wireless communications, automobiles, and other industries. That expansive presence, along with various deregulation efforts designed to help Indian businesses (hello, U.S. government!), have persuaded numerous tech companies to expand their presence in the country.

"The global tech giants are already present in India in a big way. But what we are observing now is the gradual entry of small- and medium-sized tech companies with niche product offerings," says Gartner principal research analyst Diptarup Chakraborti in the Economic Times of India.

With 5,000 large enterprises, 27,000 small and medium-sized companies and several million home-based businesses, India represents "a huge opportunity for tech providers," says Frost & Sullivan deputy director of ITC practices for South Asia Mohammad Saif in the article.

One key example cited by the Economic Times:

"Since Indian companies are increasingly competing in the world market, they find a need to adhere to global best practices in their respective fields. Hence, we feel that the time is right for us to bring our global customer insights to the Indian market," says Shankar Ganapathy, world-wide V-P of MicroStrategy, a $360-million US provider of business intelligence solutions that announced the launch of its India operations a few weeks ago.

In another example from the article, SunGard, a $5.6 billion U.S.-based IT software and services firm, has run offshore development offices in India for 16 years, but is now opening its first sales office in India to serve banking, insurance, and trading firms. SunGard says it expects to increase its employee base in India this year to 3,000 from last year's 2,000, which is 10% of its global workforce.