Innovation in IT needs state support

Hyderabad: The new Telangana government intends to focus on research and innovations in the IT sector.

Experts in the sector also point out that the sector has failed in nurturing innovations thus far, although a large number of innovations are coming up, especially from the younger crop of IT entrepreneurs.

Innovation is being seen as the next wave for IT growth and it needs a big push in terms of incubation centres, handholding etc. Almost 85 per cent of the bigger IT players in the global market already have their presence in Hyderabad and therefore IT start-ups, too, are being seen as the next big thing.

Research and Development (R&D) has a small presence in the IT pie currently. However, increased demand for R&D is being expected as well, with the manufacturing sector using more IT-enabled services and devices.

“In fact, as Hyderabad already has almost all the IT majors of the world and with most of them planning on expanding their base, the scope for IT entrepreneurs starting up innovation-led businesses is huge,” president of ITsAP, Ramesh Loganathan said.

“In fact, of late, we are seeing very good innovations coming from the younger generation of IT professionals, typically between 25 to 35 years of age. We need to encourage more entrepreneurship in the sector. There is a need to not only have more innovation-led businesses but also these innovations need to be scalable,” Mr Loganathan.

“As we look at more complex products and services, the need to make the usage easier, despite the backend complexities increasing manifold is increasing. What we are looking at is making the user experience simpler and better. The IT market world-over wants simpler and easier user experience and the next step will be to move forward in innovations.
“There is a huge scope for the IT sector in Hyderabad when it comes to innovations and new IT product companies will lead the market,” said Navaneet Mishra, director of Hexagon.