Indian IT industry was unlikely to witness a downturn but could see lengthening of sales cycles in the event of a slowdown in the US, a top official of Gartner, a leading global IT research company said.
"There is no sign at this point and no evidence of a slowdown (of IT industry) and India will continue to grow at a rate of 25-30 per cent," Gartner Vice President Partha Iyengar told reporters in Mumbai.
"It is unlikely to have a strong endemic but there could be some lengthening of sales cycle," he added.
He, however, pointed out that the country faced supply side constraints in terms of employable manpower. "Only 25 per cent of the total graduates in India were employable," he said.
Iyengar said there could be some cross industry hiring and wage inflation could get worse. The companies need to focus on more revenues realisation per employee.
Earlier, Gartner Senior Vice President (research) Peter Sondergaard said that companies of Western Europe, North America and Japan should draft a shadow IT budget to factor in a cut, if any in IT spending. "IT cost as a ratio to revenues will start to decline in the long term," he said.
India's ICT market is estimated to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 20.3 per cent to reach $ 24.3 billion by 2011. Based on the findings of the Gartner EXP Worldwide Survey of CIOs, the IT spending by Indian firms have increased by 13 per cent as against the world average of 3.3 per cent for 2008.