Balakrishnan predicts good year for Indian IT in 2021

Bengaluru: The year 2021 will be good for India's information technology sector and most of the companies in the space are expected to clock high single digit growth, according to IT industry veteran V Balakrishnan.

The former Chief Financial Officer of IT major Infosys said Indian IT companies have handled the COVID-19 very well in terms of transitioning to work-from-home and capturing new business opportunities in the wake of the pandemic.

All major global companies wanted to move to Cloud and cut costs, the Partner and Chairman of Exfinity Venture Partners said.

"That's why big deals are coming and Indian companies are getting a fair share of that", Balakrishnan told PTI.

"2021 looks good because they won a lot of big deals. Most of them will have high single digit growth. That's good for the industry".

On challenges and business prospects of Indian IT companies in the next one decade, he said every three-four years, one will see big disruption happening either on the economic or the technology front.

"New technologies will emerge or there will be some economic concern in some big economies", Balakrishnan said, adding Indian IT companies need to be relevant all the time.

"They have to keep investing in new technologies, keep working closely with startup ecosystem where lot of innovation is happening and also invest internally in people....front-end in terms of high-end consultants who understand the industry and also sales and marketing", he said.

Balakrishnan said they would be relevant at all times if they continued to do it because there will be ups and downs in growth.

"If they continue to do what they are doing today...they are in the new technologies...they understand the Cloud... digital, so when the transformation happens, they are right there", he said.

Most of the Indian technology startups have handled the disruptions caused by the pandemic well, he said, adding, even the funding availability for startups has improved.

"They (startups) have to focus on the global market, not only Indian market. That's where the value for money comes", Balakrishnan added. PTI