What is the key idea behind Strategy 2000 - the Gartner Summit planned in Mumbai next week?
We plan to have about 17 key analysts from Gartner speak on e-business trends at the Summit. The event will basically showcase Gartner's width of activity and will also help us test market here. We have had the event in Singapore and Hong Kong so far in the Asian region and the response has been very good. We have decided to introduce the event in India now since we haven't focussed on the Indian market yet and it is among the top two most important markets in the region. The event helps us test the maturity of the market.

You have pegged the total IT services market in India at about $5,547 million in 2000, what proportion of the demand is domestic and how much of it accounts for exports?
Exports account for about 80 per cent of this. The Indian market is still very immature as a customer but is a very mature market when it comes to exports. We are also increasingly seeing requests for information on Indian service companies and a lot of them are actually interested in off shore services.

Do you see Indian service companies moving up the value chain?
I certainly do. Indian companies have put together infrastructure - processes and systems in order to develop software in large volumes within short periods of time. These skills can be leveraged at any point to offer complete IT solutions for any client. Basically, Indian companies are in a position to offer outsourcing services for all IT related requirements. They basically become the IT department for clients. This is typically how services companies evolve into full fledged outsourcing centres.

What are the key sectors where growth is likely to occur within IT enabled services?
I see maximum growth in the CRM and ASP related spaces. Organisations which need a high level of contact with their customers will have to employ CRM services. India has the potential to offer outsourced services (EG call centres) in this area given the huge multilingual base. The way Indian companies can move up the value chain in these areas is by offering composite services like design, implementation of systems, storage and mining of data, extraction and analysis of data as well. Once companies get into these areas they will automatically move up the value chain. Where the ASP services are concerned, companies should be in a position to rent out their applications which will then be managed by other companies. However, infrastructure is absolutely key here, whether you speak of call centres or ASPs and it is lacking in India at the moment and this could prove a deterrent to the sector.