Indian IT cos bullish on Japan

The race to nail the elusive sun has begun! In what was relatively a virgin market, Indian software companies are now making a beeline to enter the $200 billion Japanese software market.

The Japanese government is already engaging India in various initiatives, targeting the professional talent pool of more than 10,000 Indians in the next five years.

Several Indian IT companies like Infosys, Satyam and Wipro have made Yokohama their Japan headquarters.

National Association of Software and Service Companies, meanwhile is organising its third IT mission to Japan this week to further build on the agenda of promoting IT trade between the two countries.

While the US and the Europe remain key markets for Indian software companies, accounting for over 90 per cent of IT-ITES, other regions like Australasia, South-East Asia, West Asia, Africa and Japan are being eyed by them as business platforms outside India.

According to NASSCOM data, software and services (exports and domestic) grew by 31 per cent to clock revenues of $29.6 billion, while exports (IT services exports, ITES-BPO exports, engineering services plus product exports) grew 33 per cent to clock revenues of $23.6 billion. Export earnings from markets other than the US and the UK are experiencing a double-digit year-on-year growth.

"Japan is today a leader in IT and telecom services market and India can be its partners in providing engineering services, research and product development," says Sangeeta Gupta, vice president, Nasscom.

Gupta notes that because of cultural differences and language barrier, India's entry has been a little late, but now almost all the major companies have set up their offices in Japan, they are even training the professionals in local language.

"There are at least 15-20 companies established in Japan to date. Most of the Indian companies that provide IT and software services are in the manufacturing sector," says Atul Temurnikar, chairman of GIEF & GIIS worldwide, which has set up two schools in Japan for children of Indian software professionals.

"These Indian companies offer their services to specialised areas such as legacy system software and manufacturing design services," he notes.

And since localisation is the key to success in Japan, Temurnikar says GIEF offers the native language of the particular country it's established in as a second language.

The school will act as an education platform for over 10,000 professionals from India, from software to manufacturing to CAD/CAM services, mastering the Japanese language and working along side by side with employees a vast majority of whom only speak and understand Japanese language.

However, Gupta says the biggest challenge Indian companies face is from China, which is culturally more closer to Japan.