Wednesday May 25 2005 10:57 IST
MELBOURNE: It's not quite Silicon Valley but St Kilda Road in Melbourne, Australia's IT capital, is well on its way - thanks to India's IT powerhouses.
On the banks of the Yarra, here's where the big four - Infosys, TCS, Wipro and Satyam - rub shoulders with Microsoft, IBM and HP, touching over 25 million lives every day.
The Indians already have a foothold in public utilities, financial services, insurance and telecommunications. They are now planning to move up the value chain by targeting bestselling games CDs - a rage here - and more complex sectors such as security systems and even mining software. And all this through the direct partnership route rather than third-party contracts.
This dawn could be a marketing strategy to cash in on new avenues following the US backlash against Indian BPO, says experts, but it's also a way to build a better IT brand in the global market.
Even the Australian government is firmly behind India's best.
When commerce and industries minister Kamal Nath was here for a four-day visit recently, his host was Helen Coonan, Australia's minister for Information and Communications Technology (ICT). And Victoria's ICT minister Marsha Thompson chose his visit to announce the signing of an MoU with Karnataka for setting up a new trade office in Bangalore.
According to Rick Marmur, vice president of TCS, heading its Australia operations: "India is no longer a body shop for providing cheap IT send labour for outsourcing projects. It is the combination of onshore and offshore partnership that we are looking to build."
TCS, he said, has grown over 300 percent in the last three years here - revenue growth from Australia far outstrips the average growth of the group's overall operations.
While Infosys, in the midst of a blackout period ahead of its ADR issue, was not willing to discuss details, its Australia COO Vishnu Bhat said: "It is true that we have great interest in Australia for the scope of business here and forging new partnerships with several companies here to move to higher end business."
Says Ficci president and Apollo Tyres Group chief Omkar Singh Kanwar, who headed the business delegation that accompanied the commerce minister: "My own group company run by my son is talking to casino companies in Australia to handle their backoffice work from India. Our talks are in the initial stages but the interest in India is very evident."
