Title: Moving to products: entrepreneurial IT firms in India

Authors: Sanjay Mohapatra; Rajeev Roy

Addresses: Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, 751013, India. ' Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, 751013, India

Abstract: This article takes a close look at the Indian Software Industry which has been growing at a phenomenal pace over the past 15 years. The concepts discussed in this paper draw on a range of contemporary research and thought on entrepreneurship and strategy. Further, the paper is based on detailed interviews conducted with owners, managers and even clients of successful Indian software firms. The interviews included both structured questions and open-ended discussions. The paper draws the conclusion that organisations which are active in services projects with a fair amount of domain knowledge can be successful in their foray to product development in related domains. With an increasing number of Indian IT companies moving towards productisation, there is a very good opportunity to collect relevant data and to conduct research on issues relating to development and marketing of software products. It is anticipated that the current slowdown in the world economy will affect the smaller IT firms much more than their larger counterparts. The larger companies have a lower cost structure and on the other hand, the smaller firms do not enjoy economies of scale. Some of these smaller firms are mimicking large firms and are investing in developing software products.

Keywords: IT services; IT products; product benefits; productization framework; information technology; product development; India; software industry; software products; cost structure; economies of scale.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPOM.2012.045361

International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 2012 Vol.4 No.1, pp.86 - 97

Received: 10 Jun 2010
Accepted: 21 Jul 2010
Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

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