Industry leaders expectation from the budget

budget 2018Ahead of the 2018-19 budget, industry leaders have shared their expectations with us.

Govt can create special fund to finance IT or ITES sector in the the banks. Leniency in the condition of finance will also play a big role. The nature of the industry is such that timely access to resources plays a great role in making a company viable and deliver its projects on time. Many small sized companies are unable to scale up their operation because of lack of working capital.

JP Jagdev, Managing Director, Parameter Softwares (P) Ltd

In the past few years, The Indian Government has initiated a series of initiatives, directed at driving overall change for the positive in the Economy, and results are sure to follow suit. One positive impact for example is the fact that The World Bank now ranks India as one of the top 100 nations in terms of business friendliness, a significant jump of 30 points from the preceding year. I believe more success and impact is yet to come. The upcoming budget will be an important one, as it will be expected to provide the ‘booster’ to this forward direction. This government has demonstrated that it values technology led governance for transparency & efficiency. I believe that investments in a stronger technology backbone is the need of the hour, in order to help bring the Govts vision to a sustainable fruition.

A stronger thrust on research and development that enables more indigenous innovation and increased investments in future technologies will be welcome. I do believe that we will see more of citizen focused & friendly decisions, and initiatives to bolster investment into India.

Anil Valluri, President, NetApp India & SAARC

Government led programmes like Digital India, Make in India, Smart Cities etc. are triggers for a boost in the country’s economy. These campaigns have opened a plethora of opportunities for IT industry as well. To truly  realise the potential of these game changing initiatives, it is important to harness the power of collaboration and by extension, Open Source. In this budget, we look forward to continued focus on accelerating these initiatives using Open, Agile, Secure and Scalable solutions.

Rajesh Rege, Managing Director, Red Hat, India

The online digital payment and the travel and expense (T&E) industry have undergone a path breaking transformation in India with the implementation of GST.  The trend shows, that more than 18 – 20% of the company spend is being taxed – be it airlines booking, hotel or on ground transportation. However, few corporates are reclaiming this within the given time frame. We find GST, to positively impact the T&E industry, since with expense automation to the cloud, the three way process – supply chain, invoicing and tax-filing and can be simplified. The accounts payable process efficiency is achieved, matching receipts and invoices to ease quicker GST filing, while complying with the mandated 30 day window for Input Tax Credit (ITC).”

Neeraj Dotel, Managing Director, India & SAARC, SAP Concur Technologies