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