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From just being cost effective cheap labor offshore destinations, the Indian IT sector has come a long way to giving competition to global players like IBM, Accenture in their home grounds, not just on cost but also on quality. However with growth figures not meeting market expectations, analysts are predicting the IT services market to have reached a plateau. However I believe, the next few years will see rapid transformations in the Indian sector – As can be seen in top IT companies from TCS to Wipro to Infosys, the leadership baton is being passed to energetic, young leaders- an indication of the agility and the aggressive strategies this industry is likely to see. Below are five trends and strategies I believe Indian IT companies are likely to concentrate on and it will finally boil down to who does a better job at executing that strategy.

1. Focus on Activities Higher In The Value Chain

IT players are looking at strategic partnerships with clients rather than small off shoring contracts. Also concentration is on doing more consulting work, creating IT strategy roadmaps for organisations and full integrated solutions. Amongst major Indian IT vendors, Cognizant Technology Solutions is one up in this area, as it has made early inroads into Management Consulting by recruiting a high talent pool in this area for the past few years.

2. Telecommunications and Education Sector Will Be The Next Big Thing

With focus of many developing economies in increasing their communications infrastructure and developing a strong telecommunications backbone for the growth of their economy, Telecommunications seems to be the next big thing after the Banking and Financial services sector. Telecommunication services with the advent of LTE technology many nations will expand to providing financial, social services and not just be restricted to simple communications. The IT sector will have to focus on partnering with major telecommunication companies in helping them achieve their vision. Mobile communications will be embedded with social computing and the internet and mobile services would be integrated on one platform. Also education services and the use of Information and Communication technology in fostering its growth and proliferation will be vital.

3. SaaS and SOA architecture Would Be In Demand

With today’s fast, dynamic agile market – Software as A Service and Service Oriented Architecture – will be the frameworks most commonly used. These frameworks support easy, faster integration and increase maintainability and agility of the business systems. Thus these architectures would be most used in the IT industry.

4. Investments In R&D and New Technologies

Indian companies are now trying to adopt a culture that encourages innovation, embrace new trends such as Green IT, and deliver solutions that are focused on re-engineering and transformation. India is emerging as a leading Innovation hub with increasing number of patents being filed and granted from India. Tata Consultancy Services has its Innovation Labs to create next gen products and solutions that will help their global customers. Wipro’s strategic service centres also concentrate on emerging technologies – like cloud computing, Green IT and social computing.

5. Focus On Emerging Economies

The IT industry has learnt it the hard way that focussing on only the US market would not be a sustainable strategy. Therefore IT players have started focussing their attention on the high velocity markets –EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) and Latin America. Increasing investments are being made in setting up delivery centres in these emerging markets. The IT companies are likely to use an inorganic growth strategy to increase and expand through acquisitions in this region.

So how do you see IT players act in this transformation stage, what would be the major trends and strategies used by IT companies to succeed in this high competition market?