If the Indian software companies are to excel in the global market, they should not confine their export thrust to just a few developed countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan, but spread their reach to the developing countries as well, advocated Vijay Mahajan, the dean of Indian School of Business.
"Of the 170 countries on this globe, there are only 27 or 28 developed countries and about 800 million people of six billion people in the world live in these countries. This means the Indian information technology companies are catering to only 14 per cent of the world population and ignoring the rest of the world, which is a very myopic view," Mahajan chided the IT companies which have gathered at a seminar organised by the Hyderabad Software Exporters' Association in Hyderabad on Monday.
After conducting a random sampling from the gathering, Mahajan concluded that Hysea is only a US exporters' association because a majority of the member companies are exporting only to the US.
He asked to emulate the model adopted by global majors like Nestle to attain greater momentum of growth.
Nestle gets 98 per cent of its revenues from outside Switzerland, its home country, despite the fact that it is in the high-risk food products business, he said.
Defining the developed nations as those which have more than $10,000 per capita income, he said that the maximum export growth potential lay in countries which had less than $10,000 per capita income.
Mahajan termed Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani's recent claims that the country would attain the developed country status by 2020 "as impossible."
"Do not wait for the government to create the Indian brand but do it on your own," the ISB dean advised.
"Have a global perspective and international presence, focus on value added services, spend on research and development for new products and use Hysea as a force of change for IT growth in Andhra Pradesh," Mahajan advised the association.
