When the topic of offshore software development or top IT companies or software outsourcing comes up, India is bound to spring to mind. And there is good reason for this. The country has a large pool of educated and relatively cheap talent that can be easily accessed by many large corporations and government agencies. As a result, software development outsourcing has become highly lucrative here for anyone looking to hire software developers.
As for the numbers, India’s software development industry generates 140 billion dollars per annum. This number is equivalent to 40 percent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 30 percent of total export revenue. For the year 2017-18, India’s market share was 55% of the US$185-190 billion global services sourcing business, the highest in the world.
India’s large ‘for hire’ pool of software developers and professionals
India holds the record for the highest number of talented professionals in the software development domain. The Indian IT industry employs over 200,000 engineering graduates every year. This makes it an easy choice for anyone looking to hire software developers with different skills and specializations. The country is home to programmers, architects, QA engineers, database architects and a host of other technical professionals. The prestigious institutes like IITs, IIMs and TISS and numerous colleges and universities in technical fields make sure the supply keeps coming.
Hub for industry’s Top IT and Software development companies
Cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi/NCR, Pune, Kolkata, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar and Kochi account for a major contribution to the IT industry. These cities contribute to 90 percent of the Indian IT sector and are the IT hubs of India. Among these, Bangalore is leading as the home for many top IT and software development companies. This has given it the title of “The Silicon Valley of India”. Bangalore’s robust growth allows it to attract the elite and bring the best talent from around the globe to India. It is one of the world’s leading IT hubs and IT powerhouse. Having said that, the trend is gradually shifting towards Tier-2 cities as the Tier-1 cities get saturated. That, added to raised standard of living in Tier-2 cities, has ensured Tier-2 cities rise as the new IT hubs of India. Cities like Dehradun, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mohali are pushing ahead and attracting the best talent from tier-1 cities like Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai. So anyone looking to hire software developers have more choices within India itself, than ever before.
Favourable government policies
The Indian government is clearly thinking towards bolstering India’s position as an outsourcing destination for the software sector. To develop and meet the growing needs of the IT sector, India has been investing heavily in a variety of capital deepening policies. The Indian Government has set up policies that approve foreign direct investment (FDI) in the IT sector. The investment of 110 billion dollars was made in 2017, to build networks and infrastructure for the growth of the IT sector. This makes India one of the most desired places for the companies looking for offshoring their software development tasks.
India’s Software Outsourcing Industry in the Global IT market
Indian IT outsourcing industry is emerging as a powerful player in the global software market. The Indian outsourcing of IT services and innovative software services are helping the Indian firms to outperform the competition in global competitive domain. They offer better results in terms of productivity, delivery and cost in comparison with the developed countries due to the various mentioned above. These companies provide services to every sector of the economy, from manufacturing to supply chain management, service management, education, health care, finance and more.
IT-BPM industry in India is expected to grow to US$ 350 billion by 2025. Spending on Information Technology in India grew over 9 per cent to reach US$ 87.1 billion in 2018. India has a major share of the software outsourcing industry with the country accounting for over 55% of global services sourcing business in 2017-18.
The most preferred destinations for offshore software development solutions
Exporting software, game development solutions and IT services to over 95 countries globally, India is consistently voted as the most preferred software and game development outsourcing destination. This is the reason why global IT agencies prefer to hire software and game app developers from India. The growth of the Indian software development industry has influenced many software development companies across the world. Some of the top IT companies and businesses in the US are the ones that have benefited largely from offshoring their development to India. The Indian IT industry is growing a considerable percentage every year, due to the tremendous increase in demand for offshore software development solutions. The availability of resources and low costs of software development is what attracts companies from the US and other countries in the first place. The main reasons as to why the top IT companies around the world are continuing to invest in the Indian software development offshoring are:
- Lower cost of software development and deployment due to the reduced cost to hire software developers
- ISO certified secure IT infrastructure
- Maximum utilization of resources
- Time Zone benefits
- Access to all non-core technology requirements
Is India a better option for outsourcing software development than other nations?
As mentioned before, the Indian software development industry is booming at the global level with some of the top IT companies calling it home. In the current market, India, China, Philippines and Hungary are considered to be leading service providers for offering Offshore Development Services. All these countries are competing with each other for gaining the maximum market share and presence for every possible software development solutions and services. All this is good news for companies looking to hire software developers, especially with a limited budget.
Among these countries too, India has a larger number of people with fluency in the English language giving India an edge over others. For example, a US firm is bound to invest more in the case of the low English speaking populations, raising the costs. This is not an issue with India where this additional cost gets eliminated. The other advantage is that the rates to hire software developers are mostly consistent across the IT hubs in India. That just leaves one to focus on Quality. And Tier-2 cities, with their still cheap rates and skilled pool are giving the metros a run for their money there.
Increase in India’s IT software and services exports
The IT software and services export market of the country is showing a tremendous increase every year. In the year 2017-2018, the software services export accounted for 126 billion USD, 7.6 percent more than the previous year. USA remains the top importer of India’s software services, accounting for 57 percent, followed by UK at 18 percent and Singapore at 4 percent.
Conclusion
With India’s vast experience, millions of professionals (and counting) the future of software development companies in India looks promising. And with hundreds of thousands of resources added to the IT industry every year, India seems poised to continue dominating the software industry.
