Subtle Shift Away From Services
Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 list focuses on the fastest growing tech companies. Conceived in the US in the 1990s, it came to India in 2005.Rajiv Sundar, Program Director—Technology Fast 50 India and Partner, Deloitte India, talks about the 2019 list
Changing trends of the 2010s…
The Top 50 was dominated till about 2012-13 by software services. There was a shift till say 2016 when you started seeing a lot more consultative technology businesses. 2016 to now the tables have turned. Software services are there, you can’t ignore them. But are they featuring prominently in the top 50? No. Now it’s a diverse field. You’ve got a lot of consumer internet, AI, robotic technology, predictive plus pure- play analytics and customer interfacingmanagement- interaction businesses.
You’re seeing a slightly shifting pattern towards software products, SaaS and technology being developed to cater to a problem statement which hitherto nobody catered to. That seems to be the flavour if you look at the wider economy. Consumer Internet and analytics dominate. There are also Bio/ clinical informatics. In terms of geography, this time Bangalore, NCR and Mumbai dominate the list. Mumbai is doing well because of consumer Internet.
Emerging technologies on the list
As far as blockchain goes, the monetization capability is still not there. Blockchain as a technology, surprisingly enough, is being developed in house by a lot of the big businesses, who have real applicability. When it comes to Robotic Process Automation ( RPA), there are a few here, not many. That’s becausea lot of them find the utility value of their Intellectual Property to have better value and acceptance in the US than in the Indian market presently.
If you’re looking at the Indian market, the IP accretion is really going to be from a private equity or a VC investor who’s willing to play the bet on your product. A lot of the serious automations folks, they’re not entrepreneurs, they’re technocrats. Their preference tends to be: Can I go to a market where there will be significant understanding and appreciation and instant applicability of the tech that I’m developing. So I may as well go to the US, where I’m going to have the General Motors of the world at the Fords of the world are going to be liking what I’m doing. In India a lot of the underlying infrastructure is not conducive to absorb the tech that these guys are developing.