Creating, managing intellectual property to drive IT-BPM industry: Nasscom

The Indian IT-BPM industry in the coming decade is expected to be driven through creating, managing and monetising Intellectual Property (IP), according to a report released here.

The report also observed that the key challenges the domestic IT-BPM companies face include talent management, lack of opportunity identification and issues with the legal ecosystem.

"The industry searching for its next big growth engine and technology leaders agree that the next phase of business models could be driven by the rise of SMAC (social, mobility, analytics and cloud) and the convergence of technologies," the KPMG-Nasscom report released at the Nasscom India Leadership Summit here today.

Stating that it is imperative for IT-BPM companies to take a deep dive towards IP management to effectively utilize these trends, the report said, "the Indian IT-BPM firms have achieved only limited success in the field of IP, their growth having being initially driven by the cost advantage over North American and European destinations."

According to the report, in the past decade, Indian firms have acquired the scale and skills necessary to deliver large scale, complex transformation projects but the vast majority of these projects are linear in nature, with their revenue directly linked to resources. As far as IP is concerned, most Indian firms are at an initial stage of IP development, it said.

"Intellectual Property is critical in a world economy that is increasingly dependent on innovation. Indian firms should look at creating business models driven by effectively leveraging and monetising these IP capabilities and targeting the global product market," KPMG global chairman for technology media and communications Gary Matzusa said.

Mr Matzusa said while the Indian IT industry is witnessing a growth momentum, sustaining it would require a paradigm shift.

"We can no longer solely bank on delivering cost effective quality services. The changing dynamics and business models demand co-creation with clients, resulting in proprietary products for Indian Technology Company which in- turn will deliver better value to end consumers," he said.

According to the report, to enhance the benefits that can be realised from IP, it is imperative that organisations gain a proper understanding of the IP value chain.

The value chain details the various steps associated with the evolution of an IP asset from the state of building a road map, managing information and workflows to the state of a tangible product

The three steps typically involved in the IP value chain are - IP Generation, IP Management and IP

commercialisation.

With an increase in focus on product development and generation of IP, organisations in India are focusing not only on traditional R&D but also in end-to-end managing of the IP portfolio, the report stated.

"I am seeing stark differences in the investments being made by Indian technology players, especially in the areas of human capital, infrastructure, marketing, new age solutions and even M&a," KPMG India head for IT/iTes Pradeep Udhas said.

If there is adequate support from the rest of the ecosystem like educational Institutes, funding agencies and regulatory bodies, the Indian IT-BPM industry can reach close to the projected growth rate and be a $300 billion industry by 2020, he said.

He said a considerable part of this will emanate from transformational models, creation and monetisation of IP, and developing strong domain expertise around emerging trends such as SMAC.

The report emphasises that there is a growing need for more breakthrough technologies and product oriented outlook in India.

It said that collaboration with various components in the IP eco system like educational system and investment systems is also of crucial importance.