Nasscom launches product council for software product companies

Move comes as a part of the recommendations by the N R Narayana Murthy committee to address challenges, need of the industry

National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), on Monday announced that its has formed a product council to focus more on the product companies in the country. The move from Nasscom comes as part of the recommendations by the N R Narayana Murthy committee to address the challenges and needs of the industry. Earlier, the industry body has faced criticism for not focusing on the growing product companies in the country. Nasscom also announced Ravi Gururaj, Chairman and Co-founder of Frictionless Ventures as the Chairman of the Council.

In February this year, industry leaders like Bharat Goenka, co-founder of Tally Solutions, Sharad Sharma, former head of Yahoo India R&D and around 30 Indian software product companies had joined hands to form thinktank called iSpirt.

“The growing product industry needs focus and Nasscom will work together with various industry associations and thinktank for the growth of the sector. The Product Council will work with the startups to provide them various helps like market access, industry partnerships, enabling policy, skills and funding,” said Nasscom President Som Mittal.

Nasscom also said, the total market opportunity in the software products for Indian companies is estimated to be around $10 billion by 2020 comprising both exports and the domestic market. According to Nasscom, in 2013, the total Indian software market was estimated to be in the range of $2.2 billion.

In order to create an opportunity for the Indian product companies, the industry body in March has also launched an initiative called as '10,000 Start-Ups'. Through this initiative Nasscom will enable the creation of 10,000 technology startups in India in the next 10 years which is expected to generate about 500,000 direct jobs.

Krishnakumar Natarajan, Chairman,l Nasscom said: “Over the years Nasscom has evolved consistently with the changing environment. We believe that product companies and start-ups are the next growth engines for the industry and will contribute significantly in realizing the vision outlined for the industry.”

According to Nasscom, India currently has more than 2,400 software product firms across 46 product categories and approximately 20 companies with Rs 100 crores from products.

Nasscom also said, it would increase the focus on industry segments such as internet and mobile, software products, domestic market, business process management (BPM), engineering and research & development (ER&D) and global in-house centers (GICs).

The industry body also said, the Indian products companies have huge potential for growth in areas like education, ecommerce, healthcare, SMB solutions, gaming and entertainment, cloud infrastructure, big data and local language solutions.