Gujarat SME IT firms on a roll
At a time when most of the IT hubs across India were facing a tough time and major players witnessed drastic fall in their margins during the financial crisis, small-scale IT companies in Gujarat continued to witness good business growth and recorded impressive surge in export of software and hardware products. The gloomy global economic climate failed to have a negative impact on the IT sector in the state, as most small companies clocked steady growth in their IT exports.
Growth amid troubled times
According to estimates available with the Software Technology Park of India (STPI), IT exports from Gujarat registered 72% year-on-year growth in 2008-09, rising by over 20% over the last 3 years despite the challenging times. Revenues from IT shipments from Gujarat soared to Rs 1,270 crore in 2008-09 from Rs 740 crore in 2007-08.
'Even during the recessionary period, Gujarat SME IT firms continued to receive good orders. Small-scale IT firms in the state were preferred over the tech giants due to competitive rates offered by the former,' said Sandeep Shah, manager of Creative Infotech, a small-sized IT firm in Ahmedabad.
The STPI (Gujarat) figures show that IT exports from Gujarat have already crossed Rs 1,000 crore during April-December 2009-10. This indicates that small as well as big IT players in the state continue to flourish even though the key Western markets are yet to emerge from the shadows of the financial meltdown.
'Availability of technologically skilled manpower, well-developed infrastructure and favourable business environment further helped small-scale IT companies in Gujarat to turn the attention of bigger global clients towards them, which enabled them to post good growth numbers even during recession,' said a key industry official.
Moreover, it is not only firms in the outsourcing sector alone, but healthy revenues enjoyed by small firms in the field of Engineering Design Software (EDS) also helped the IT sector in the state to scale greater heights despite recessionary pressures.
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