Gear Up for 2010

Besides praying for a great 2010 where business booms again, there are a few

things that we will have to watch out for. And make sure we are all geared up

for avoiding pitfalls and grabbing opportunities.

One of the biggest things with the onset of 2010 is newer IT acquisition

models. Revenue share, buy as you deploy, shared IT infrastructure, managed

services, and so on, will become more popular. It is beginning to make lots of

business sense, and investment risks are significantly reduced. On top of this

there is freedom from technology trap. All these are only likely to go up in the

following years even though Indian organizations are still on the beginning of

the handling outsourcing learning curve.

In 2010 the rise of the domestic market will continue and IT deployment will

reach out to newer and far off places. The biggest challenge will be

availability of manpower to make sure that IT infrastructure runs smoothly. As

of now most IT training in the country has been targeting software and services

exports. Training people to cater to domestic needs will start getting critical,

though established training institutes will take some time to gear up. Manpower

need for local market will be big.

IT outsourcing by organizations will only grow in 2010. Every survey, every

discussion forum of CEOs and CIOs is pointing to this need. Organizations want

to focus on their main line of business, and managing IT is becoming more

complex as well as demanding. Plus, this model also seems to be more

economically viable.

Year 2010 will see a lot more action in terms of a more sophisticated and

robust telecom infrastructure. The government will obviously play a more active

role, specially because new operators, 3G, content and VAS will have a

considerable contribution towards building the national network. Dependence on a

strong and leading edge communications network will go up, as more and more

organizations will deploy mobile applications, and quality of services will go

up.

There are lots of small and big initiatives going on for tagging people, but

I think in 2010 this is going to catch on in a big way. Some of the IT savvy

states will implement more far reaching and practical citizen ID plans. And at

the other end we will see this catching up in schools, colleges, offices, and

other work places. They would ultimately connect to the Unique ID of the

Government of India but that will take some more time.

In 2010 the smiles on the CIOs faces will continue to grow. Despite all the

outsourcing, plug and play technologies and applications, the CIO will be a very

important person. Obviously, the CIO will have to work much closely with other

CXOs because they know IT and their expectations much better.

A very HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Ibrahim Ahmad



ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in