The software industry of the country started getting the wave of the global economic turmoil and downturn in the outsourcing business. The index of software export is declining from the eve of this year. Last year the growth of the software industry was much better than this year. The software industry of the country is facing new challenges and tough experiences to sustain in the international businesses.
Therefore, many software houses are focusing on the domestic market instead of outsourcing deals. Still domestic market is bigger than the international market. The government’s pledge for a Digital Bangladesh will introduce every ministry e-Governance, the banking sector is one of the most powerful buyers of software, the software industry trying to convince them to buy local software to save the industry and minimize their operational costs, another prime buyer is telecommunication industry, which is booming in the country.
The current fiscal year of 2009-10 will not be disappointing for the software industry. The government already allocated over 500 core Taka fund for the IT industry, including 100 core Taka emergency fund and Equity Entrepreneur Fund, EEF, of 100 cores has been expanded to 200 core Taka. Few days back Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman promised more allocations under EEF fund ever after 200 crore Taka in the seminar titled Banking and Finance in Light of Digital Bangladesh organised by BASIS.
So domestic market is vibrant in terms of the allocations, the government’s promise for Digital Bangladesh and the rise of the public sector. The budget of the year of 2009-10 was to serve IT businessmen rather than providing digital gadgets at the cheap price to the common people because the price of the hardware is on the rise. Additional taxes have been imposed on the IT products, which caused rise of the product prices.
Some IT pundits campaigning the future of the IT industry does not lie in export, boosting up domestic market is needed to improve expertise and ensure development. But making IT industry biggest revenue earner after the garments industry is also a buzzword. Similar emphasis must be given to the outsourcing tasks. After the economic turmoil a scope will come at our doorstep to bless the software industry. We should prepare to grip the coming opportunity. We should think that by imported hardware and software we cannot escalate our e-Governance, e-Commerce, telecommunication industry and banking sector.
IT is the best tool for any kind of business solution and innovative steps with IT can save the investment and bring business agility. To sustain in the economic turmoil everyone needs IT to save business. However, the corporate world in the west is axing hardware and software budgets. IT budgets in the United States are predicted to grow by only 2.3 per cent in 2009, instead of the 5.8 per cent growth originally forecast.
The country has earned the credibility in the outsourcing deals. Much high quality software has been developed here very successfully. Before, for the reasonable ground, the standard of domestic products was poor and many previously implemented e-governance projects have failed either for inefficiency or corruption. Some months ago few local companies achieved CMMI Level 3 certificates and a CMMI Level 5 company recently entered the country. Maintaining status of the certificates is indeed a difficult task. These companies will throw competition among the local companies. Partnership with multinational companies sometime increases performance of local staffs, build professionalism and help budding companies.
The software industry of the country will get a big market just after the recovering from the global recession if the industry efficiently seeks the international businesses. At this coming moment many western companies will look for other reliable and cheap outsourcing partners. It will be a transition period from old outsourcing partners to new partners. So we should be prepared to grip the international IT businesses. It is a high time to assign lobbyist groups consist of experience businessmen, academia, journalist, NRB etc who have excellent convincing and negotiating power. Previously for lack of communication skills some foreign trips by few IT people were unsuccessful.
We need more trained programmers for the software industry, and their skill must be according to the global requirement. Software industrialists should generate innovations in bringing the international businesses, which must be backed by commerce ministry, export promotion bureau and of course, the ministry for Science and Informational and Communication Technology.
Any economic crisis is one of the opportunities to rebuild a company with low-cost efficient IT solutions. Such crisis makes a ground for the better transformation and opportunity. After economic turmoil a scope may jazz up the software industry of the country. To cut IT budget American and European companies will look for cheaper outsourcing destiny than before. They will have to change outsourcing partners and their focus will be on budding outsourcing destiny like the country. If the software companies can be able to show reliability and savvy, then a big international market is waiting for the software industry. We should explore the opportunity with the maximum use of our talents.
Source: http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=9&date=2009-07-10
