India rides high on IT quotient: Survey

India Inc's investment in all aspects of social networks, mobile computing, analytics and cloud computing (SMAC) is consistently surpassing its global counterparts, a PwC survey says.

According to PwC's Digital IQ Survey, Indian companies are investing heavily in SMAC with a vision to drive business growth and combat the changing economic and market structures.

As per the report, 42 per cent of Indian companies are investing in social media as part of external communications for customers and suppliers (global average 33 per cent), 48 per cent invest in public cloud applications (global average 24 per cent) and 40 per cent in adopting mobile technologies for customers (global average 31 per cent).

"Mobility defines the new ways of getting to work, cloud becomes the workplace, analytics provides business sense and social media transforms into the platform to engage with colleagues and customers.

"In a new age, this could create a whole new ecosystem that ushers in a new level of agility while redefining the traditional work environment," PwC India Emerging Technologies Leader Rajesh Rajan said.

Mobility for employees and harnessing big data are also areas of strong investment for the Indian companies.

Around 48 per cent of the respondents are investing in data mining and analysis technologies as analytics combined with a comprehensive social media strategy improves customer service and reduce costs, the report said.

Nearly 60 per cent of the survey respondents plan to invest in mobile technologies for employees, and around 40 per cent are building capabilities using the help of third parties.

About 35 per cent of respondents consider their employees to be already equipped with the required mobile technology to deliver products and services.

The survey further said the level of involvement of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) or an IT Head with the rest of the C-suite while formulating the business strategy of a company is crucial to the digital astuteness of a company.

Around 85 per cent of the Indian companies are digitally astute, as measured by C-suite collaboration in comparison to 54 per cent in the US and 69 per cent in the UK.

About 71 per cent of the Indian companies have a single multi-year roadmap, and IT leaders in 80 per cent of those companies shared a detailed understanding of corporate strategy at par with their CEOs, the survey added.

Photograph: Tech Mahindra office in Noida
Adnan Abidi/Reuters.