| Type | Conference presentation |
| Event | Globalization of Chinese and Indian Enterprises |
| Organized by | Global Knowledge Forum |
| Location | IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India |
| Date | November 2–3, 2007 |
| Slides | Download the presentation (PDF) |
A talk delivered at the International Conference on Globalization of Chinese and Indian Enterprises, IIT Bombay (November 2–3, 2007).
In short: How India’s national innovation system — its engineering institutions, policies, and private-sector dynamism — helped grow a generation of Indian IT and software multinationals that now operate worldwide.
About the talk
This presentation examined how India’s National Innovation System (NIS) — the web of educational institutions, government policies, and private initiative that shapes a country’s technological capabilities — contributed to the rise of Indian Information and Software Technology (IST) multinationals. It traced their growth, characterised what set the successful firms apart, and analysed how they expanded internationally through outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), illustrated by the experiences of leading firms.
What the talk covered
- Three phases of India’s IST sector (1955–1978, 1979–1990, and 1991 onward), showing how government policy, institutions, and private-sector initiative each shaped its development.
- The scale of the sector’s globalisation — analysis of 161 IST multinationals operating 661 overseas entities, with their geographic spread and ownership patterns mapped.
- A strong tilt toward developed markets, with the USA and UK as primary destinations and a clear preference for fully-owned overseas subsidiaries.
- What distinguished the successful firms — high concentration among the top players, deep international operations (overseas subsidiaries accounting for a large share of global sales), and case studies of TCS and HCL Technologies.
Get the slides
The full presentation is available as a PDF:
⇩ Download the presentation (PDF)
Related research on this site
This presentation draws on the author’s published work on Indian software multinationals:
- Multinationals from the Indian Software Industry — the full book chapter (in Siddharthan & Narayanan, eds., Indian and Chinese Enterprises, Routledge, 2010).