- Sharon Colaco
India's Webspertise

India. This culturally diverse nation has an astounding mosaic of 950 million inhabitants! The legendary South Asian country of elephants and snake charmers is now also making waves in the web development services arena.

India's foray into web-development
India was a latecomer to the Internet. The reasons are low PC penetration and lack of infrastructure and high Internet costs. This scenario changed soon enough, and Internet usage grew at an exponential rate. Cyber cafes played a key role in making the Internet accessible, which helped a great deal. Web-development outfits sprouted first in Bangalore and Hyderabad, and soon in other parts of India. The downturn in software development too proved to be a spin-off factor, prodding more Indians towards the web stream. The number of India's Internet users is forecasted to reach 50 million by 2004. According to a recent national survey, 55% of young Indians are opting for careers in web-related activities (design, integration, web services, content writing, database integration, e-commerce etc). Not surprisingly, India is now a potent hub for web-development.

Just how good are India's web-shops?
True, India is gearing up its web expertise in a big way, but just how good are its web-shops? India's web gurus have moved far beyond amateur web designing. Developing a great site means much more than adding fancy graphics, killer designs, or sticky content. Any web-guy in India will tell you that these are all necessary factors in site design, but the key to successful web designing is the technology and the idea that it is built on. Web-shops are therefore picky about the expertise and capabilities of people who work with them. They keep up-to date about trends in their field, and can be often found to be on online lists and forums, discussing the finer points of Java, J2EE and client-server technologies. India's web shops are probably the best in the world, and improving constantly.

How is all this possible?
The buildup about how good India is must have got you wondering about how a developing country is winning hands down in the web development arena. Here are the answers:

Knowledge professionals: The vast resources of skilled web development professionals in India has ensured that there has been a healthy growth in the number of India's web professionals over the last decade. From 2,000 knowledge workers in 1986, the number increased to 222,090 web professionals in early 2002.

Affordable IT Education: IT education is 8 times more affordable in India than in the United States.

English-speaking professionals: Most Indians are fluent in the English language. This has led to a choice of careers in web development, and consequentially, supplementary careers in content and technical writing.

Government Incentives: The Indian Government realizes the potential of IT in improving the economy, and has initiated several programs to encourage and improve the industry. The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is developing infrastructure that supports information technology. The IT Bill passed in 2000 provides a legal framework for the recognition of electronic contracts, electronic filing of documents, etc.

Influx of talent from other educational streams: India's educational system lays strong emphasis on Math and Science. A large number of students therefore get into engineering colleges. However, they are not assured of jobs, and engineering-related jobs are not as remunerative as IT jobs. So the influx of architects and engineers who are strong in design fundamentals into the web-development industry.

The long-term potential
India's domestic market for web development is approaching saturation. Where's the web industry headed then? The recent economic downturn has forced organizations in the US and UK to reduce their IT costs. Rather than building up an expertise in web development, these enterprises are opting to outsource. This counter-recessionary boost to the trend toward outsourcing to offshore service providers is where India stands to gain. India's webspertise makes it the hottest outsourcing choice. It currently controls 85%+ of the market.

The increasing emphasis on customer response activities in the West have made Indian outsourcing service providers reinvent themselves and extend their web development activities to ASP (Application Service Providing) and other high-end outsourcing solutions. Daksh.com offers a range of Web-enabled customer care and value-added services (including real-time chat, knowledge management, e-CRM architecture) to global companies like Amazon.com and Bigfoot.com. Indians are fluent in English and are more quality conscious. Given this strong value proposition in terms of skilled labor, long-term economics and a high position on the learning curve, India could build a $17-billion web-enabled industry by 2008, says the most recent Nasscom-McKinsey report.

Is India the only player?

The offshore outsourcing model was first made successful by India, the first player to provide outsourced services from as far back as a decade.

India is now facing competition from Mexico, Russia and Ireland, China and Canada. However, India's companies are strong, with customers passing the most emphatic verdict and extending their contracts. Skilled manpower costs in India are significantly lower than in the other countries. Besides a vast pool of talent and a remarkable fluency in English, India has two other traits of a successful offshore region mainly a rapidly growing infrastructure and a proven experience of doing business with the West.

And finally..
Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM (National Association of Software & Service Companies, the premier association for IT in India) says, " India and IT are like France and wine", reinforcing the fact that a developmental trend has overtaken the nation. The move to outsource web development activities has taken on an unprecedented momentum, adopted partly to focus on core competencies and partly to streamline staffing in a talent-strapped economy. Outsourcing has grown into a mature and viable alternative, with a promise to boost India's economy like never before.