Resilience: The Defining Factor In India’s Technology Story

Over the last two years, we have lived through surreal circumstances; those that we would typically read about in dystopian literature or watch in a movie. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic changed our lives and the way businesses function dramatically. Just when we were beginning to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, the Russia-Ukraine war brought about new challenges for the global economy. Inflation is rearing its ugly head across the world, supply chains are adjusting globally, growth in consumption is being questioned.

Yet India stands out as a unique nation for its potential, and ability to showcase resilience in the face of adversity. Within the technology sector specifically, and amongst companies seeing the potential of technology-enabled business opportunity, Indian companies are poised to weather the global headwinds.

India’s tech sector leading the way for growth

A recent forecast by Gartner has projected that IT spending in India is poised to grow 2.6 per cent in 2023. This comes amidst the realisation about the importance of investing in digital innovation. Companies understand technology is mission critical in their growth endeavours.

As an important factor in India’s technology-led growth story, cloud has earned its rightful place as an essential enabler of data-backed businesses. Business success is driven by the ability to fully leverage multiple cloud-native technologies to reach out to new customers. SaaS-enabled products are being integrated across the value chain to deliver innovation that makes a difference to businesses and consumers. The ability to leverage data across multi-cloud ecosystems is critical to create customer value and to do it in a secure, compliant, efficient, and sustainable manner. In the next three years, more than half of the GDP will be contributed by digitally transformed enterprises – more than any other enterprises.

When the pandemic hit, virtually every country in the world indiscriminately helicoptered money into their citizens’ bank accounts without regard to need. The government’s use of India’s tech stack assured the basic needs of food and security of every vulnerable citizen and stood out in contrast to other countries.

Government’s role in building India as a tech powerhouse

What is also aiding in the growth of the Indian technology sector, are favourable government policies. The Indian government is at the forefront of promoting digital initiatives and has been a visionary with its plans towards achieving this. Back in 2015, when the nation embarked on its Digital India initiative, we were prepared for change. Today, the pace at which this has been accelerated, and continues to grow, is a reassuring sign of changes to come. Initiatives like e-Kranti, and more have emboldened the drive among Indian businesses to work along with the government to make India a tech-driven nation.

The fusion of 5G services in India, the data generated from IoT-enabled endpoints, connected sensors, modelling of physical processes with massive-scale cloud infrastructure etc. will modernise the Indian industry manifold in the next three years. These advances will open new avenues for businesses across sectors. At the centre of all of this we will witness an influx of data to make informed decisions – whether it be automated factories, autonomous cars, drug discovery…data will drive innovation. According to NASSCOM, AI and data can potentially add up to US$ 500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025.

While we have already made significant progress in this area, we still have a long way to go. India is known as a hotbed for innovation but every country in the world has a focus on research and development. Going forward, the great Indian technology story will be defined by how we continue to innovate, build industry-first products, and create new opportunities for domestic and international markets. Startups too have emerged as a force to reckon with, through their use of new-age technologies to solve real-world issues thereby disrupting the status quo. India is currently home to 107 unicorns and 50,000+ startups. And their contributions and impact will be felt like a tsunami in the coming decade.

Looking towards a bright future

Realising this growth potential and sustaining it requires a focused development of technical capability and skills. This holds great potential for the youth of our country particularly in specialisations such as data science, analytics, development of cloud native applications, and data management.

If we are to go beyond the application of technology to invention and innovation, we must do more. We must maintain the investment in basic sciences, engineering, and math. For decades, Indian engineers and scientists have fuelled the development of technology ecosystems in Silicon Valley and across the world. A lot of that has now shifted back to India yet the pace of innovation in India, in deep technology areas such as AI, ML, autonomous systems, green energy, robotics, IoT etc., is amplifying the needs for foundational skills to not just have a globally competitive workforce, but to drive innovation from India.

Our opportunities continue to expand. The Indian technology sector has already proven its mettle in being resilient in the face of global adversity. Driven by a strong sense of purpose, the onus now lies with every stakeholder in the technology industry and the broader ecosystem to work towards making India a global leader in technology. This in turn will drive innovation, as even more industries and services become technology enabled.