Emerging Markets

SEGMENTS

The single largest reason for use of Information Technology is to generate or deliver information. The single largest direct and indirect consumer of information is the society. Information is consumed to enable a material need, not just for the sake of information consumption.

Material needs of society include society’s need for food, energy, land, water, goods, mobility, communication and coordination, entertainment and learning. These needs of society are satisfied through processes that are driven by information. Different organisations service processes that deliver the material needs of society. Processes delivering material needs enable or disable vibrancy, liveability, resilience, stability, and sustainability of society.

The revenue streams contributing to the processes delivering societal need make up the GDP. Almost 60 percent of these revenue streams are estimated to involve services for processing information. Since the use of Information Technology in the emerging areas directly increases the revenue streams of the processes that contribute to the GDP, it produces a double effect and increases the size of the market itself.

STRENGTHS

The biggest strength of the emerging market is perhaps that it is based on the information needs of society. This makes it a sustainable, stable and clear requirement that will be demanded by society in good times or tough times.

Emerging markets distinguish operational, management and governance users and uses. They therefore offer information about here and now, then and there and in the future over the regions of interest.

The emerging markets contribute to directly enhancing the quality of life. This makes it immensely attractive to pursue as it changes the very society one lives in. It also makes the emerging market work in unison with aspirations and not in contradiction as a compromise in life.

The emerging markets contribute to enhancing the GDP directly by being much larger than the traditional market and indirectly by increasing the value of the contributions made by other societal processes.

WEAKNESS

The biggest weakness of the emerging markets is perhaps it’s addressing the local and not foreign exchange economy. The emerging markets are also in their nascent state and therefore prove to be higher risks than traditional established markets.

OPPORTUNITY

By modest estimates the IT needs of emerging market is at least 3-6 times the size of the entire traditional Indian IT market. Unlike traditional markets which have little impact beyond their own contribution to GDP, the emerging markets boost the GDP the through their contribution as well as through the increased activity facilitated by its intervention. This double impact will actually increase the size of the emerging market as it grows.

THREATS

Since the existing traditional market is largely an export market, revenue streams are considered as multiple streams due to the exchange rate. This is a big barrier to shifting over to revenue streams in Indian Rupees.

Culturally India is risk averse. It has been a follower, not a leader. Most Indian innovation and entrepreneurship succeeds outside India. This can be a major inertia for shifting to alternate revenue streams.

Continued quick fix markets (like Y2K) can serve as rapid earners and prevent focus on sustainable revenue streams.

COST OF IGNORING NEED

If India ignores the emerging IT markets it faces the risk of disenfranchising more than 60 percent of its population.

Processes that deliver the material and emotional needs of Indian’s will become unstable, unsustainable or lack resilience. The respite time, or the time before which the societal needs must be met, may become smaller in comparison to the response times, the time in which the societal needs can be met. This will not only stress the disenfranchised, but also those who continue to benefit from the traditional IT markets.

The failure to improve the country’s ability to address its societal needs with IT will result in greater economic divide. Those who are part of the traditional IT markets and those who are not will show a marked difference in their purchasing power as well as quality of life. Not only will more and more people continue to be deprived of basic needs but also the costs of providing to the few who can afford become ever higher.

In the absence of addressing the emerging markets the traditional IT industry will continue to look and feel different, and require ever increasing benefits that resemble the developed world whose needs it will continue to service.

Finally, by ignoring the emerging markets India will continue to depend on technology from the west and not be able to create homegrown solutions to address home problems.

The growing costs and security barriers at obtaining technologies will restrict the players who can access technologies for home or export solutions. This will bring about a greater opportunity, economy, and technology divide between India and the rest of the world. The development of skills to apply technology for the west will reduce or eliminate skills capable of understanding and addressing local needs making it difficult to address home problems.

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