'2002 appeared like a low, but it actually strengthened us'

Sunil Mehta

The software industry reached its maturity in the year 2002 so to speak. Even though there were geo-political and security concerns, the industry emerged stronger. In that way, the software companies were successsful.

The security concerns that have been highlighted over the recent times has had a positive impact in Indian companies; in that they are now implementing concepts like continuity planning, disaster management etc, which only strengthen them in to the long-run

Even though 2002 saw the travel warnings, I wouldn't say it had negative impact in a financial sense. Overall, software companies have achieved their target. There has only been a certain amount of postponement.

Because few companies travelled to India owing to security concerns, Indian companies became more proactive in meeting them in countries like Singapore, United Kingdom or better still organizing video conferences.

Some of the exciting areas in the software industry currently are integration services, package software, enterprise application integration, enterprise security, business process outsourcing, back office operations, customer analytics and business intelligence.

2002 was very important for the software industry because we got world-wide recognition of our capability and a very strong endorsement as an outsourcing hub.

What is particularly commendable is that so many small and mid-sized companies this year reinvented themselves by developing expertise in a particular area.

As far as the large software companies are concerned, I would say what is significant is that all of them skipped up sales and marketing, diversified into new services like the BPO, hired very strong senior management and invested considerably in building the brand.

Sunil Mehta is Vice-President, National Association of Software and Services Companies. He spoke to Kanchana Suggu.

2002: The Year That Was