Ideas For I.T. SME’s To Ride The Rupee Appreciation Wave
09 Sep 2007 | Print
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For those who have seen the raise of the rupee against the greenback a last couple of quarters, the question mark stays - “Will it continue to raise or will it reverse back to the Rs. 45 to 1 USD levels ?”
Mainstream analysts concentrate on big ideas “Go ahead and build assets in U.S., make that acquisition now, etc.,”. Sure, all valid points for the big ones.
Can the IT SME’s, who supply predominantly to the US markets, think of any opportunities for leveraging the other side of the depreciating greenbuck ?
1) Invest in Marketing / Brand building
For those SME’s who have an evolved and well defined offering, this is a right opportunity to invest some dollars into brand building/ PR/ Marketing activities within a niche segment in the US.
How to do it ?. Well, one could probably begin by hiring a consultant, whose price may look to be attractive now. The same goes for any travel that you have been planning to be in the US, to network with your prospect set actively.
What you sow now can reap good benefits when the USD rebounds.
2) Hire Contract Resources
For the SME’s who are facing a top talent crunch for any open projects, this is the right time to hire and import some senior talent on contract for a 12-18 month time frame (at prevailing prices)
3) Look for contracting long term managed services partners in the US
The time could be ripe for looking at managed services providers from the US like ASP’s, Managed Hosting Services, etc,
4) Software upgrades
Think about migrating from some of those trial versions in use to a full fledged software product suite that you always thought would add great value to your operations.
5) Outsource to the US
Though this idea can seem preposterous, I am sure there are opportunities in some niche jobs like design consulting, documentation, product packaging, etc., that could be done on contract from professional firms in the U.S
Overall, though there may not be many ideas to negate the effects of a raising rupee on the cash flows in an absolute numerical value, one can definitely blunt the edge by utilising this wave to look at the US closely as a supply source in some of the above ideas, than worry to death
The brave ones can..
About the Author:
Mahendra is the President and COO of Collabor, an interactive technologies company that leverages the convergence of Telecom, Internet, Media and Entertainment (TIME) sm.
He was earlier associated with Ion Exchange Financial Services, JS Digital Media and Franklin Templeton in Sr. Management and consultant capacities before joining i-Vantage, as its Regional Vice President - Consulting and Chief Marketing officer. At i-Vantage, he helped project manage setting up of captive centers in IT and I.T.E.S for US and
European companies in India.
Mahendra is a life member of the Hyderabad Management Association and actively participates in promoting the science of management amongst its members. He also serves as a research consultant for prominent law firms in corporate law. He is a proponent of open source as a universal concept and writes in his blog
Views expressed here belong to the author and do not represent those of the ThinkingStreet or the author’s employer
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