Indian IT 2019: The Talent Roundup
As we close 2019, we leave behind a year when Global Tech market was projected to slowdown from 5% growth in 2018 to 4.5%. While the numbers get tallied to confirm or contest that projection, we also brace for a 3.8 percent in 2020. Closer to home, the Asia Pacific market is also part of a slowdown that would see growth percentages shrinking to a little over 4% in 2019 and 2020.
With China and Japan dominating the APAC spends with a collective 60% , India will continue to be the 3rd largest contributor in the region with an estimated 70Bn$ tech spend this year.
The India Impact
Effects of a global slowdown with specific focus on USA representing over 2/5th of the Global Tech spend were visible in India in 2019, with IT services majors dropping a collective of over 45,000 staff over the last 2 quarters of 2019. While 2020 is expected to also hover in the doldrums, there are some bright spots with Tech Consulting and Outsourcing services expected to grow by 16%. With the commencement of 5G transition groundwork expected to contribute to a boost in ICT spend in the Telcom and Content services markets., one has to wait to watch if the Global slowdown and domestic development can square off.
However all was not gloom with India’s IT in 2019. Tech startups continued to spring up on a healthy pace with support from VCs and the Government’s initiatives like Startup India. India continues to be globally 3rd largest tech startup base.
NASSCOM estimates that the tech-startup base in India is expected to reach an estimated 10,500 in 2020.
Parade of the Unicorns
2019 saw the continuance of the parade of the Indian unicorns that was witnessed in 2018. While 2018 saw the birth of 11 Unicorns, 2019 continued the trend over 8 additions and a couple more are expected as the investment and revenues get tallied for the year closure. Despite the fact that these new Unicorns are from a mix of industries like Retail, Healthcare, Logistics, Media, Automobile and Tech, majority of them have Tech either as their backbone or mode of service. In that sense it can well be attributed that the parade of the Unicorns is powered by Tech. These tech powered Unicorns provide direct employment to a little over 60,000 professionals and provide indirect employment for 1.6 to 1.8 Lakh people.
A whopping 79% of the companies marked as high potential Unicorn entries are Tech associated and tech powered. These Soonicorns are largely from domains like eCommerce, Healthtech, Enterprise tech, Fintech and Deeptech. The Soonicorns are stepping into 2020 with a potential to nearly double their their headcounts over the year. While the Unicorns continue to attract the best of Tech talent, the Soonicorns aren’t way too behind the Unicorns. Aggressive growth plans and investment attracting business models allow the Soonicorns to be equally aggressive with Talent acquisition and competitive in their compensation structures to attract and retain high end talent.
Deals Galore – Tech Investments Scenario
Of the over 760 investment and M&As clocked in 2019, Tech and Tech Associated deals were the maximum, contributing to over 45% of the total deals and bagging home a massive $4Bn in investments out of an estimated total of over $8.9Bn that were clocked in 2019.
