'Domestic market key to $300 b IT sales by 2020'

Even while hoping the global economy to turn around, it is imperative for Indian IT companies to look inwards for business opportunities to achieve the target of $300 billion by 2020, according to the Executive Co-Chairman of Infosys Ltd, Kris Gopalakrishnan.

“The Indian IT industry should look at new avenues of generating revenues by offering services, products and solutions. It is an aspirational target. In case of Infosys, our India business is growing faster than our company average; we are doing projects with post office, income tax department and other departments. These will grow further in the next three years,” he told reporters on the sidelines of BangaloreIT.biz 2012.

He said e-governance initiatives of the Centre throw up many opportunities for IT companies, estimated at about Rs 30,000 crore. Further, hardware imports, as part of these initiatives, would be about $300 billion. “If we create domestic manufacturing capacity, we can reduce imports and simultaneously create jobs (in India),” he added.

He said that the key to achieving these targets is that governments create an “ecosystem” by addressing issues of infrastructure, entrepreneurship and talent and expressed optimism that businesses will also pitch in. “I am confident industry will gear up, we have to work together.” 

He also stressed the need to develop Tier-II cities to expand the IT sector in India.