Indian firms bet big on digital tech to support market expansion

Businesses in India are planning major investments in digital technologies to support their ambitious expansion plans after lessons learnt from the pandemic. New findings from an annual survey of technology decision-makers, by US-based digital infra company, Equinix, suggests that 96% of IT leaders in India indicated their organization is planning to expand into new markets in the next 12 months. A majority (67%) of those planning an expansion said they are most likely to support it by deploying virtually in the short-term and then building permanent physical infrastructure when needed.

“The pandemic also continues to have a significant impact on Indian businesses’ digital strategies,” said Manoj Paul, Managing Director, Equinix India, adding that with 63% of respondents cited that their IT strategy has become more aggressive and ambitious because of the pandemic. For most, there was an urgency to replace legacy with robust digital infrastructure to suit the changing nature of work. For example, over 43% realized the need to re-architect their IT infrastructure to ensure it supports 5G capabilities. Besides, there was an increase in the investment of artificial Intelligence (AI), edge computing and internet of things (IoT), to support a robust technology framework.

Cloud continues to be a key technology for transformation as close to 86% of Indian IT leaders said they plan to move more business functions to the cloud with a majority (80%) moving their security functions to the cloud, and a good number (60%) intend to move databases to the cloud.

At present, however, a number of potentially limiting factors were also identified by Indian IT decision makers when it came to business success, with cyber-attacks highlighted as a key area of concern (78%). In addition, 76% specified global supply chain issues and shortages as key threats to their business. There appears to be driving a need for more virtualization for further investments of digital infrastructure, said the study.

In the next 5 years however, a majority of Indian IT leaders (52%) expect Web 3 to replace Web 2 within the next five years, with eight out of 10 respondents indicating that their business already has a Web 3 strategy in place. The study also showed that a whopping 95% of Indian IT leaders see opportunities to hire from smaller towns in India to tap into fresh talent pools.

Finally, with innovation at the heart of every strategy, digital leaders are keeping a close eye on the sustainability of their IT infrastructure. The study said, in India, 84% indicated that their customers want to know they are taking steps to reduce carbon footprint of their IT infrastructure.