NASSCOM and PricewaterhouseCoopers today released a report titled ‘Opportunities For Indian IT Industry: Nordic Countries’. This third report in the series focuses on specific countries/regions which are new markets, competitive destinations and/or potential partners for India. The earlier two reports featured China and Japan.

Mr. Ameet Nivsarkar, VicePresident, NASSCOM said “Indian IT-BPO companies are fast diversifying into new territories and opening up further opportunities for growth. Currently, 90 percent of the exports are focused on United States and Europe with rest of the world contributing just 10 percent. The Nordic region with very high ICT adoption, besides R&D investments offers an untapped opportunity for Indian IT companies and another potential entry point to Europe”.

Mr. Abhijeet Ranade, Associate Director, PwC said
Rather than looking at the Nordics in isolation, Indian IT-BPO companies should target the region as a first step towards a larger presence in the European multilingual & multicultural mainland. This will also enable the IT-BPO organizations to develop and drive their strategy for Small & Medium Businesses”

Strategies to succeed for Indian IT-BPO companies

• Sectors of Focus: manufacturing, telecom, public sector, banking and financial services. In addition, shipping and logistics in Denmark and Norway, oil and gas in Norway; forest and paper products industries in Finland offer specific opportunities within the region.
  
• Customer segments to target: Indian companies have established themselves with large Nordic enterprises as suppliers of quality technical expertise at competitive cost. Indian companies should invest in the relationship. However, success in the Nordic region will to a large extent depend upon how Indian companies approach the Small & Medium size companies from the region. SMB market will require a strategic change in the perspective.
  
• Services to target: Engineering services, Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) are quick win opportunities for Indian companies. These services leverage technical expertise of Indian companies and offer a good fit with respect to Nordic requirements of technical innovation and talent shortage.
  
• Business services: Indian companies should consider non voice-based transaction services of local companies. Many Nordic companies are also looking to establish SSCs either as captive units or with a vendor. Off shored R&D and innovation hubs are also opportunities within business services that Indian companies should target. Indian Companies should also consider setting up delivery centers in Eastern Europe to gain access to multi-lingual skills as well comply to EU data protection norms.
  
• Localise to succeed: Although the Nordic market is relatively less sensitive to working with foreign service providers as compared with other European markets, Indian companies should communicate their focus by establishing a local entity either independently or in partnership. Indian companies should be mindful of the need to localise their front-end sales teams and marketing collaterals.
  
• M&A as opportunity: The Nordic IT services market comprises of a large number of international and regional service providers. This is in the consolidation phase and has seen several takeovers and mergers. Though Indian vendors have also been active in this scenario, the transaction size has been small. Indian vendors should look at large-ticket acquisitions as a viable strategy to establish themselves in this market. Such transactions will provide Indian companies with requisite scale in this market and give access to specific customer accounts.