The Indian IT industry needs to look beyond the US, UK and European markets and focus on the Asian markets to strengthen its position and hedge itself against risks, said Egidio Zarrella, global partner in charge, IT advisory, risk advisory services, KPMG.

Speaking at the launch of a KPMG report ‘Exploring Global Frontiers- the new Emerging Destinations’ at the Nasscom forum, Zarrella said that Indian IT majors are not expected to get major contracts from US, UK, and European markets, as they used to earlier, in the midst of the downturn.

In accordance, they should look at tapping the Asian market.

“These markets do offshoring and outsourcing as much as western markets. They are very large and growing and have a better fit in terms of cultural understanding,” Zarrella said.

The KPMG study says that cities in countries like Vietnam, Chile or Romania are more cost effective than cities in the US, Canada or Australia.

Countries like Egypt and Canada have a larger workforce and quality talent is available in cities like Gdansk (Poland), Campinas (Brazil) and Cario (Egypt).

The report also states that cities like Buenos Aires (Argentina) can act like near shore destinations for North America as well as Europe due to linguistic similarities.

According to Zarrella, China and India will dominate world economics with their capability to serve the IT industry.

He further added that Indian companies could look at the Japanese markets as well, since a lot of work from Japan is being done out of China now.

“Two-three years down the line, Japanese business is expected to look beyond the domestic market for services and therefore there is a huge opportunity out there,” Zarrella said.

Malaysia and Vietnam could also emerge as competitive destinations for India, he noted.

Source – Financial Express