The year 2022 is phenomenal for the software industry as it will cross $200 billion in total revenues and five million in the total workforce, said the industry body, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), in its report “The Strategic Review: The Technology Sector in India”.
The IT sector was instrumental in keeping the world’s economy chugging since 2021 as the entire world opted to work from home because of the raging pandemic, and companies opted to provide tech tools to their employees to continue to engage them in productive work.
The Indian IT sector grew 15.5% in 2022 over the previous year, which is the highest ever, and the revenues clocked to $227 billion. Innovations with XaaS, making software services accessible and affordable for all, helped boost revenues. Also, the majority of tech startups upscaled and matured to contribute to the sector’s growth, while eCommerce players increased their penetration through online and offline models.
The sector crossed the five million workforce mark, with 4,45,000 employees being added this year. Companies quickly adopted the hybrid work model allowing their staff to share their work time at home and office without affecting productivity.
The Hiring Wave to Continue Throughout 2022
Though the Great Resignation is shaking up the tech industry worldwide, 90% of Indian tech company CEOs said they would see hiring growth in double digits this year, as per the Tech CEO Survey 2022 by Nasscom.
Nearly 60% of the respondents also said that they expect half of their staff, who have been working from home over the last two years, to return to offices this year.
Nearly two-thirds of CEOs said digital tech talent could constitute 50% of hiring. The survey stated that the digital tech talent pool is around 1.5 million, making one in every three IT professionals digitally skilled.
The survey predicted that companies would increase hiring graduates from campuses and non-engineers to fill the demand-supply gap. Gig workers constitute nearly 10% of the workforce, which is expected to grow further.
The growth in revenues has increased India’s share in the global IT services market to 59%. Over the next few years, companies worldwide, which need these services, are expected to contribute $250-300 billion to the sector, making India achieve the dream of becoming a $1 trillion digital economy.
Segments On Verge of Continuous Growth
According to the “Enterprise CXO Survey 2022”, conducted by Nasscom, 70% of end-user corporates are expected to increase their digital spending in 2022 with a focus on customer service, supply chain and sales and marketing.
These companies are also major contributors to employment generation as nearly 30% said that they would increase their IT workforce by over 15% compared to 2021.
The sector will be on a rapid growth trajectory in 2023, with growth opportunities coming from infrastructure and managed services, consulting, platform business process management, data management, robotic process automation and engineering, and research and development in cloud engineering.
In the software product services, there will be more uptake for productivity software and cybersecurity solutions. The Nasscom report stated that the eCommerce sector would witness further adoption of Metaverse-related technologies disrupting the industry as customers demand more personalized experiences.
