Ohara, Moriki, and Koichiro Kimura, eds. 2009. Comparative Study on Industrial Development Process in China and India. Interim Report. Chiba: Institute of Developing Economies. Chapter 3 Offshore Outsourcing of Knowledge Based Industry: Software and ITES Sector Hiromi Hinata Abstract India and China have emerged as two of the world’s fastest growing economies. While China‘s fast growth has been based on rapid industrialization, India’s recent growth has been lead by the service sector, particularly software and information technology enabled services (ITES). China is now speeding up the development of software and ITES, but nonetheless still at an early stage of sector development. China has strengths and advantages for the growth of software and ITES sector such as strong government support, strong infrastructure, a large talent pool, solid platform for cultivating Asian market and untapped domestic market. By leveraging these advantages, China may take different trajectories from India and become unique global outsourcing destination. Keywords: China, India, software, information technology enabled service, government policy, human capital, Bangalore, Dalian 77 1 Introduction India and China have emerged as two of the world’s fastest growing economies. While China’s fast growth has been based on rapid industrialization, India’s recent growth has been lead by the service sector, particularly software and information technology enabled services (ITES). Software and ITES are high value-added, environmentally protected and relatively lower natural resource consumption compared to manufacturing sector. Also, the sector absorbs large number of educated human resources. China is now speeding up the development of software and ITES to realize industry strategic adjustment and take advantage of its rich human resources. China has gained the attention as a software and ITES offshore destination. This paper compares the status quo of software and ITES sector in India and China, looks at China’s ability to compete with India, and identifies the major contributing factors to their patterns of software and ITES sector developments. The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 provides a brief overview of software and ITES sector in India and China to review the characteristics of the sector in each country. Section 3 examines the factors that support development of the sector. In section 4, we see the sector development process in depth from case studies of Bangalore and Dalian. Section 5 offers a summary conclusion of the paper’s findings. 2 Software and ITES sectors in India and in China The revenue aggregate of the global software and ITES sector in 2007 was estimated at over US$ 940 billion, growing at 7.4%. The revenue in India was estimated to be US$ 52.0 billion, account for 5.5% of the global revenue. The revenue in China was estimated to be US$ 82.2 billion, account for 8.7% of the global revenue. The revenue of the Indian software and ITES sector is smaller than that of China (Table 1). Table 1: Global Software and ITES Revenues (2007) USA EU Japan China India Others Total Revenue in billions (Unit: US$) 343.0 260.0 89.2 82.2 52.0 113.6 940.0 Share (Unit: %) 36.5 27.7 9.5 8.7 5.5 12.1 100.0 Source: CSIA (2008). 78 Comparing the export revenue, however, the revenue of India was much larger than that of China. The gap is increasing and it is unlikely that the China will catch up India in the foreseeable future (Figure 1). Figure 1: Software and ITES Exports from India and China (2001-2007) (US$bil.) 45.0 40.3 40.0 35.0 China 31.3 30.0 India 23.6 25.0 17.7 20.0 12.9 15.0 10.0 10.2 7.8 10.0 6.1 2.8 3.6 5.0 0.7 1.5 2.0 0.0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Source: CSIA (2008). The software and ITES sector in India mainly serves to the export market and its domestic market is small unlike China (Figures 2 and 3). Figure 2: Software and ITES Revenues in India (2005-2007) (US$ bil.) Export Revenue 7.0 6.0 Domestic Market Revenue 5.0 4.0 4.1 3.0 3.2 2.4 2.0 2.3 1.0 1.3 1.6 0.0 2005 2006 2007 Source: NASSCOM (2008). 79 Figure 3 Software and ITES Revenues in China (2005-2007) (RMB bil.) 7000 Domestic Market Revenue 6000 Export Reenue 727 5000 501 4000 297 3000 5107 4299 2000 3603 1000 0 2005 2006 2007 Source: CSIA (2008). The US and UK remain the dominant markets for Indian exports, accounting for nearly 80% of the total (Figure 4). On the other hand, China’s software and ITES exports are predominantly serving the Japanese market, which account fore 60% of the total export (CSIA). Figure 4: Geographic Markets Served by the Software and ITES Sectors in India (2007) Asia Others Pacific 2% 7% Rest of Europe 12% USA UK 61% 18% Source: NASSCOM (2008). India’s software and ITES companies are much larger in scale than Chinese companies. The headcounts of the top three Indian companies are around hundred 80 thousands. On the other hand, the largest Chinese company has recently reached ten thousands (Table 2). China’s average headcounts per company in the sector is below 100, which is less than one tenth of India.1 China lacks scale players and its market is fragmented with many small companies. Table 2: Top three Indian and Chinese Software and ITES Companies Revenues Headcount Tata Consultancy Services $5.7bil. 130,000 Wipro Technologies $4.9bil. 95,000 Infosys Technologies $4.2bil. 103,000 Neusoft $0.5bil. 14,000 HiSoft - 3,300 Chinasoft International $0.1bil. 4,400 Source: The author based on companies’ reports. Note: Revenues are of 2007, Headcounts are the latest information available from companies’ homepage as of February 2009. 3 Evolution of Software and ITES sectors in India and in China The development of software and ITES sector has been influenced by a number of different factors. This section compares sector evolution of India and China by highlighting three factors; government policies, role of industry associations, and human capital. 3.1 India 3.1.1 Government Policies After independence from Britain in 1947, India’s development strategy had been characterized by import substitution policies. Until the mid-1980s, foreign investment was not permitted in many sectors unless there would be a transfer of technology. Permitted projects had difficult time from reversal treatment such as to reduce foreign ownership. There was such an incident that IBM, which had been one of the two largest 1 Based on the ballpark calculation from number of employees in the sector divided by number of companies in the sector. For China, 1,480,000 employees / 18,000 companies = 82 employees. For India, 2,000,000 employees / 2,000 companies = 1,000 employees. 81 providers of computer hardware in India at the time, chose to leave India in 1978 because of this India’s protective policy. Policy has changed in 1984 when high level policy makers realize the public sector was not able to supply the computer hardware and software that was need by the domestic market. The New Computer Policy implemented in 1984 reduced import duties from 135% to 60% for computer hardware and from 100% to 60% for software. Income tax was reduced from 100% to 50% for net export earnings. Sectors were further deregulated by the Computer Software Export, Software Development and Training Policy (1986). Hundred percent export oriented software companies were allowed to import hardware free of duty. The government encouraged software exports and export-oriented investment. Texas Instruments is acknowledged as the first foreign software company to establish a 100% export-oriented fully owned subsidiary for offshore development in India. Texas Instruments encountered many difficulties but the government officials were very supportive to succeed the Texas Instruments offshore development project as a sample case. From the experience of accommodating Texas Instruments’ fully equipped software development centre, the government realized the importance of providing investment environment to promote the development of software industry. This recognition brought the establishment of the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) in 1991. The purpose is to encourage and enhance software exports from the country. Export-oriented companies in STPI are exempted from income tax till March 31, 2010. STPI is an autonomous entity under the Department of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India. STPIs provide infrastructure resources such as office space, computer equipment, access to high-speed satellite links, and an uninterrupted supply of electricity, one-stop service station for statutory services, and train professionals in the field of software technology and engineering. The success of STPI has led to the emergence of India as a global center for software and ITES. STPIs have spread to 29 cities in India. Countries such as Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Algeria, Indonesia, etc. are taking the help of STPIs to set up similar technology parks with the same concept. 3.1.2 Industry Association Industry association has played an important and active role in evolution of software and ITES sector in India. 82 National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) was established in 1988 to facilitate business and trade in Indian software and services through lobbying. The memberships are open to companies that are incorporated or registered in India. Not only Indian major companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, but also multinationals from US, Europe, and Japan such as IBM, Cisco, and Accenture are members. More than 80% of members are small and medium size companies which annual revenues are below US$15 millions.