3 - India: a PESTEL analysis

Abstract

This chapter presents a Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal (PESTEL) analysis of the Indian software industry. In the last three decades, India has gained a prominent position on the world business map due to its emergence as a leading “software nation.” The rise of the Indian software industry has been so phenomenal that it is considered a notable economic development of the last century. What began with the supply of skilled software professionals to the United States in the 1970s came to be the world's fastest growing software industry over the next three decades, known globally for its superior software capability and leading to a new identity for India. Since its beginning in the late 1970s, the Indian software industry has grown by leaps and bounds, as testified by standard economic indicators, such as growth in sales, employment, and export volumes. The genesis of the Indian software industry can be traced to fortuitous circumstances and an evolutionary approach characterized by experimentation, its growth is certainly attributable to a deliberate strategy supported by a host of hard and soft factors, which are discussed in the chapter.