BANGALORE, INDIA: Indian IT industry regulatory body NASSCOM today expressed confidence that India can become a laboratory for innovation within a decade, provided the industry, government, and the organization itself work collectively.

The focus of the recent NASSCOM-McKinsey report 'Perspective 2020: Transform Business, Transform India', revolves around the vision and practical ways as to how this goal can be achieved over a decade.

“The perspective 2020 is not meant to be just a report, rather we are also actively working towards implementing the plans across companies, government, and educational institution,” said Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM, while participating in a discussion on the report.

He further said that the industry, government and NASSCOM should work jointly and take concerted actions to materialize this vision.

The three major areas where India can aspire to be an innovator include energy efficiency and climate change, mobile applications and clinical research outsourcing.

“Carbon amendment can be secured through technology, and we are the single largest industry that can address to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint,” said Mittal.

He further added that the area of energy efficiency or climate change is yet undeserved.

The report says that mobile phone, Internet, and broadband are going to be greater growth enablers.

“The Industry is headed towards growth as there are huge areas that are barely touched, which leaves behind us an enormous opportunity,” said Pramod Bhasin, NASSCOM chairman, president and CEO of Genpact India Pvt Ltd.

NASSCOM predicts that apart from the core markets, the new emerging markets like the healthcare, education, financial services and public service are yet undeserved and can be the major contributor of growth.

The addressable market for global outsourcing will triple in size from USD 500 billion today to USD 1.5-1.6 trillion in 2020 and India can achieve 80 per cent of incremental growth by tapping addressable markets.

Enabling ICT solutions in these emerging sectors would act as a driver in socio-economic development.

Some of the key finding of the report for the industry said that the employment and education have seen an outstanding increase over the last decade.

The urban employment saw 45 per cent of incremental growth which were directly or indirectly supported by the industry.

Also, technology and business services industry has helped expand tertiary education significantly; the top seven states that account for about 90 per cent of industry exports (Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and UP) have founded six to seven times more colleges than other states.

With the current global economic crisis worsening day by day, NASSCOM has charted a significantly positive outlook and aspirations for the industry by 2020.

The report aspires the export business in India to grow to USD 175 billion by 2020 from its current USD 45 billion.

Additionally, with this increase, it also states that the overall direct job generation would grow by 12 million.

NASSCOM agrees that the current crisis has got a far-reaching impact and great pressure on volumes and pricing, and states that their vision of achieving USD 60 billion by 2010 would get delayed by three to four quarters.

However, what the industry feels is that as soon as the market stabilizes the off-shoring too would increase, according to NASSCOM.

“The clients whom we spoke with told that they believe growth is going to happen soon,” said Noshir Kaka, director, McKinsey and Company.

Mittal further added that companies which invest during recession could emerge stronger, it would be a huge mistake on their part if they keep short-term goal surrendering to pressure, as they would lose the sight of long term.