Wednesday, March 6, 2013

New Unexplored Shores


Talk about Indian IT companies and their sales & marketing strategies, one question that remains unanswered is whether they should concentrate on markets other than US? The leaders are skeptical about the growth, accessibility and returns.

For two decades now, the US market has been harnessed and has saturated up to a certain extent. It still contributes a major chunk of the global IT revenues. But as the saying goes, change is inevitable, we need other options. When recession blows the US, the Indian economy should not be affected.

There are both, challenges and benefits in exploring new markets. In Europe, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Spain and APAC (Australia, Singapore, Japan and India) are some of the areas where IT companies are targeting. Though some of these countries might have language barrier, but most of these countries are not as open to offshoring as US and UK. But, on the brighter side, the high difference in the currency exchange rate, paying capacity, lack of skilled labor, hunger for adaptation of latest technology and low competition opens a whole new field for the players.

It’s really strange but I have been talking to some of my friends and seniors in the industry and found Japan to be the target market of the future. Would you have guessed that? I did not! The market has a huge potential and is opening up for business day by day.

This brings to light a great lesson for Indian IT companies. Change in stand and having multi-dimensional and flexible sales teams to focus on new territories would be like a breather to survive the crisis moments.