Interesting Facts About IT sector in Kerala

Kerala, the land of paradise, dreams and aspirations is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Lovingly referred to as God’s own country, this beautiful state in the southern most part of India is well known for its captivating rivers, mesmerising greenery, serene backwaters, sun kissed beaches and scintillating backwaters. The tourism in the state is pretty demanding as well, with people coming to visit the destination at all times of the year. It is a good place to start a company or business as well.

The Information and Technology sector is all geared up for an era of successful entrepreneurship in the state. In spite of the recent issues with the coca cola company and the like, the industrial boom in Kerala has also been tremendous. Much of the boom can be attributed to the fact that the IT sector is striving in the state, calling for young and enthusiastic professionals in various fields, especially graphic designers, web developers, transcriptionists, transcribers, virtual assistants , content writers and so on.

India has evolved to become the exporter of knowledge-intensive services and the country has a rich and significant repository of technical and scientific intellectuals. The state of Kerala has been fortunate to have one of the highest literacy rates in the country and has been attracting opportunities in the IT industry. Software and its related services have seen an exponential growth over the previous years and there was a quantum leap in the export of talent because companies in the European countries and in America have been outsorucing their tasks to companies in Kerala.

Till a few years back…

Back in the 1990s Kerala did not even figure in the industrial map of the country. The industries that were running in the state of Kerala concentrated only very few sectors, while others went down to be failures or were neglected. This caused the employment ratio to be totally unbalanced. It is not that jobs weren’t there, it was because they were available to only those few sectors that were functioning here. Certain industries that were started in Kerala had to be closed down because of several problems, either because they did not function according to rules or because the state did not welcome them. Take the instance of Coca Cola for instance.

What happened to the Coca Cola plant in Kerala?

Coca Cola, one of the giant soft drink makers in Kerala had to close down their Plachimeda, Palakkad plant in the year 2007, following the hue and cry raised by the people living in the village where the plant was located.

The serious differences that the Village Council had with the Coca Plant, the former, because the people of the village insisted that the plant was drying up their resources and the latter, because the Village Council was not ready to reissue their license, and matters came to a serious head with protests and demonstrations. The issue was taken up in court and eventually the plant had to be shut down because they had no means other than the groundwater resource to make their soft drink.
Positive side of investing in Kerala

Examine the positive effects of investing in this state of Kerala.

  • National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) has rated Kerala to be the second hottest destination for IT related services and IT-Enabled Services (ITES) in the state.
  • The budget that Kerala spends on investing in IT is the highest in the country.
  • Kerala has evolved to be a cost-effective solution for IT companies because there are lots of entrepreneurs trying to make it big here.
  • The Technopark has the capability meet the highest demand put forward to them in the field of IT and IT-Enabled Services (ITES).

The advantage Kerala has over others

The people of Kerala migrate to foreign countries either to work or study and a good percentage of them settle down after studying into order to work and attain citizenship. According to a report from the Kerala Migration Survey-2014, this migration to foreign countries could be due to the state’s inability to provide good and steady jobs to the people. The number of people getting out of colleges and universities with a credible certificate in hand is increasing, but they do not get guaranteed jobs. Added is the fact there there is glamour in the term “migrating to the Gulf”. These reasons inspire many of those people to seek their prospects in those countries.

If you visit foreign countries, you can see that a good percentage of the people are from Kerala. They work as doctors, engineers, CEOs, even as taxi drivers and road sweepers. The people of Kerala are thus not only willing to do any job that pays them well, they also have excellent educational qualifications.

While this is the situation in Kerala, many companies from abroad, especially those in the European countries are outsourcing their work to companies in India in an effort to cut costs and make use of the talented skills within the country. There are skilled and educated people within the country who are willing to work at the time zones preferable to their European and American clients.

Conclusion


Kerala is thus a resourceful state in India with a strengthening economy. It attracts foreign companies who have come forward expressing a willingness to invest and outsource.

Interesting links about the topic:

Facts about Kerala
7 Interesting Facts About Kerala

Kerala Tourism official website

Pictures: Flickr.com/ Antani/ Cambodia4kids/ CommScope


The author: Reema Oamkumar is engaged as a thought leader at Software-Developer-India.com which is a part of the YUHIRO Group. YUHIRO is a German-Indian enterprise which provides programmers to IT companies, agencies and IT departments.

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