We haven't seen any slowdown in client spending: Nasscom chairman

Nasscom is focused on bringing digital to scale, reskilling and co-creating great innovative models, says Keshav Murugesh

At a time when many fear that the global economy may be heading for a recessionary phase, Nasscom, the industry body that represents the domestic IT the Indian IT and business process services providers, says that it has not yet seen any such indications on ground. Nasscom Chairman Keshav Murugesh in an interview with Romita Majumdar says that the past investments that the companies operating in this space have made in areas like digital technologies, skills and capabilities building, have made them largely resilient to such external threats. Edited excerpts:

There is an increasing fear that global economy may be heading for a downward phase. Are Nasscom and the member companies seeing this in terms of reduction in client spending or business slowdown?

While there are many reports about the economic slowdown in the market, at Nasscom we have observed that the results and guidance from our member companies in the IT industry continue to remain positive. Client spending is also optimistic, indicating that there is no economic slowdown at the extent at which it is being projected. 

The CEO’s from the country’s largest IT companies continue to talk about digital transformation, adoption of digital technologies like AI and ML, and skilling of talent as key focus areas. This indicates that while the world is cautious about a prospective recession, the IT industry continues to remain on a steady growth trajectory. Nasscom is watchful about the economic situation. At the same time, we are also thankful to the Indian government for introducing slew of measures to instill greater confidence in the market.

Globally, banking clients are slowing down their spending, there are increasing concerns around protectionism as well which impacts Indian IT businesses. How are tech services providers coping up?

The industry is mature enough to appreciate and understand that such issues keep cropping up every now and then. Our model has to be resilient enough to withstand these issues and grow in spite of them. Nasscom is focused on bringing digital to scale, reskilling and co-creating great innovative models with these businesses. When you focus on these concerns first — as tech companies would do — protectionism and related concerns diminish. 

Is there any fear of job loss in the sector owing to these?

Every company globally is a tech company today and they need skills and talented people to manage those. So, in spite of all these concerns, the IT industry has continued to grow and add jobs. Last year, the demand mood was low yet more jobs were created than what Nasscom had estimated. 

While a few sectors may lag, not every company will experience it (the slowness in demand). 

Fintech seems to be the flavor of the season giving rise to a lot of new age firms focusing on this space. How is Nasscom facilitating the fintech community to participate in the digital economy opportunity both at domestic and global scale?

Nasscom had predicted this start-up fuelled growth some time back. We have taken the model across states and while some states have introduced their own programmes, they see benefit in partnering with Nasscom for the model we offer. We work constantly to bring in international affiliation through trade delegations globally. For example, right now we have a group talking to start-ups in Japan. The opportunity on the fintech side is immense. We have already seen solutions like Paytm achieving scale, volume, market capitalisation, respect and reach. With the change that we see in business models, we are very confident this is the way India will grow. 

As the CEO of WNS, can you tell us about your priority areas now and what kind of new opportunities that the digital economy boom created for you?

Earlier when social media and born-in-the-cloud (internet) companies interacted with us, they wanted to figure out what we could offer them. But as these companies grow, they keep finding new areas where we can assist. We (WNS) recently announced a large insurance partnership which is an example of such engagement. We continue to see strong sales momentum across verticals and geographies at this point as they are keen on transformation.