From startup firms to big software vendors, here is a snapshot of pre-budget expectations
Saurabh Saxena, Country Director – India, Micro Focus
Innovation is increasingly becoming an important driver of business and economic growth. India has a large pool of talent and we see tremendous potential in the R&D space, especially when we talk about the IT industry – 30% of our product engineering is based out of India. Apart from India’s vast talent pool, the growing start-up ecosystem and cost efficiency are other factors that have spurred the move of setting up various technology centres in the country.
Our country has 1600+ deep tech start-ups that are building innovative solutions. Additionally, deep tech led by AI has potential to add over USD 957 billion to India’s GDP by 2035, according to a recent report released by Nasscom. As such, the ability of Indian companies to rapidly scale up continue to be India’s unique competitive advantage. To increase India’s R&D expenditure, there is a need for greater government support and policies that would incentivize R&D.
We are sure that the upcoming 2020 budget will make relevant recommendations to boost the economy. We look forward to continue investing in R&D and collaborating with the government to help our nation with the digital transformation journey
Ramkumar Narayanan, VP Technology & Managing Site Director, VMware India
I am hoping that the government will continue to renew its focus on the Smart Cities mission and help iron out the challenges of infusing capital in cities with public-private partnerships to give the project, the fillip it needs. The time is ripe for the government to foster a culture of innovation using emerging technology and adopt a new digital approach to strengthen businesses and workplaces of the future. Incentivizing research and development in the IT sector with special emphasis on R&D in emerging tech could be a step forward. Other areas that would gain momentum, if it received the government’s attention and collaboration would be waste management, conservation of water and the environment.
Veerendra Jamdade, CEO, Vritti Solutions Ltd
In the Budget, the Centre needs to come up with initiatives that will ensure a growth in agriculture income and boost rural consumption. Wastage of agriculture produce has to be brought down. A key factor for the decrease in GDP growth is a flat agriculture growth. There has to be incentivisation for SMEs for tech adoption and automation. Thrust has to be on further standardization of manufacturing processes for SMEs, moving beyond the
ISOs. The government should create models for skilling of local population which will make them ready to be hired by corporates. In the Make in India concept, the government should focus on the local manufacturing
and development of Indian product development and Indian software product companies
Sudhindra Holla, Director, Axis Communications, India and SAARC
We are very optimistic with the Government’s renewed focus on smart cities and infrastructure development. The various initiatives like research, education and outreach projects help in addressing the challenges of urbanization and sustainability.We expect that the budget will have opportunities to provide safety to the citizens, especially the women and children and also focus on border security
Amit Sharma, Founder & CEO, Narvar
India is on one of the largest and the fastest-growing markets for digital consumers and accounts for the world’s second-largest internet market. With easy access to data and digital proliferation across the country, we have started seeing an increasing number of online shoppers from smaller cities and towns, thereby boosting business prospects for MSMEs. We hope for this budget to invest in spreading the expanse of digital infrastructure and enable consumers from small towns to have access to ecommerce. Measures to increase disposable income will further enhance the digital economy. A level playing field between retailers will see increased participation of MSMEs and aid in growth of small retailers in India
Vamsi Krishna, CEO & Co-founder, Vedantu
Education has transformed in a big way over the past few years where students and educators are most conscious of adopting engaging learning tools vis-à-vis recorded content. Live online learning is playing a big role in this transformation and its effects are now being witnessed from the metro to smaller towns. This change is in sync with India’s digital transformation story and the government’s plan to rejuvenate the education sector with the revamped “National Education Policy” in the last budget. We look forward to more such initiatives and friendly measures for the live online learning ecosystem.”
C V Subramanyam – Chairman & MD – Cigniti Technologies Ltd
IT is one of the few industries which remained growth-driven despite the recent slowdown in the past financial year. We are confident that the new budget will usher in significant changes and better days for the Indian software industry. Also, we expect to see some relaxation of labour laws and relief/reduction in Dividend Distribution Tax for IT companies operating in India
Kashish Jhamb, Executive Director and CEO, City Innovates
For Budget 2020, we would like the Government to provide benefit to young entrepreneurs in terms of setting up of new companies or supporting new ideas, can be achieved by providing suitable subsidy from the government side. Lower Corporate Tax for young entrepreneurs which are under less than to Rs. 5 crore turnover, should not be in the range of 25- 28% which is very difficult to sustain for a new company.
Also, in India, the Government speaks a lot about moving into Digital space and motivate small offline businesses to convert it into online businesses, but there is no support system from the government. If we talk about countries such as Canada or Singapore, the government gives support in the form of grants. Similarly, the Indian government should put in some money in the form of grants where the offline business can be taken online. For encouragement in terms of monetary support to companies who are willing to move into frontier areas of immersive technologies like- AR/ VR/ AI/ Machine learning which is the future of any country, there should be a process where the government can initially support them in setting up of the company.
