Recovering markets in Europe and North America offer opportunities for Indian media and technology companies

By Dr Uday Phadke, Director, AcceleratorIndia

Global markets remain critically important for Indian media and technology companies despite high domestic growth rates

The signs of recovery in the European and North American markets present a fresh opportunity for Indian companies to gain a firm foothold in tough international markets.

The benefits of doing this now are potentially significant:

• International markets continue to provide better margins, even for attractively priced products and services, compared with the ‘value-conscious’ Indian market.
• The difficult economic and fast-changing technology environments have created the right conditions to build new channels to market, as traditional market and industry structures are eroding.
• There are significant opportunities to create real partnerships with international companies who view such partnerships as their opportunity to engage with the fast-growing Indian market.
• The potential for aggressively-priced M&A has never been greater due to lower valuations and a weakening pound.

Given this scenario, there are a number of market sectors in which Indian companies are well-placed to compete due to India’s traditional strengths in media, software and services and mobile technologies: 

• Digital media and technologies, where changing business models and volatility in products and services provides a natural opportunity for agile Indian companies to get into markets quickly
• Software based on SaaS (Software as a Service) models, where the ability to distribute globally without complicated distribution channels enables Indian companies to compete more cost-effectively.
• Mobile services and applications, where there are opportunities for higher added value offerings than in the Indian market today, driven by the explosion in smartphone sales.

A number of Indian companies have already pursued international expansion successfully, such as UTV in the media sector, Zoho in SaaS and Obopay and Paymate in mobile applications and services.  Current market conditions offer a unique opportunity for Indian technology companies to expand internationally by grasping this opportunity.

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Published on 14 April 2010