Press Release

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05/09/2007

Intellect and NASSCOM announce partnership to strengthen UK-Indian SME links

Intellect, the trade association for the UK technology industry, and NASSCOM, the Indian trade body of the IT software and services industry, have today announced a partnering programme to strengthen UK-Indian IT relationships, particularly among SMEs. The first project in this partnership is a competition for UK and Indian technology SMEs to win financial and business support to exploit opportunities in the Indian and UK IT markets.

The partnership aims to increase trade between the UK and India. Industries that rely heavily on technology, like new media, financial services and healthcare, are growing particularly fast in India. Consequently, so is its domestic IT market. This year alone it represents a market worth £9.4bn to UK companies, growing to £16.5bn by 2011.

The Intellect-NASSCOM competition will run in the UK and India. Six winners will be selected from each country. Winners from the UK will be flown to India to create partnerships with Indian IT companies and sell to the Indian market. Indian winners will have the same opportunity in the UK market. They will also receive free mentoring as part of a package of other benefits. The competition is supported by the South East Media Network, UK Trade and Investment and the Indo-British Partnership Network.

Tom Wills-Sandford, deputy director general of Intellect, said, "The Indian IT success story is not just about outsourcing and joint development, although these have brought major benefits to the UK economy. It is also about a rapidly increasing market opportunity for British goods and services. The compound annual growth rate for the Indian IT market between now and 2011 is forecast to be 16.4%. I am confident that this partnership will bring major opportunities to UK SMEs – it has the potential to add millions to their bottom line."

Ameet Nivsarkar, VP of NASSCOM, said, "Anglo-Indian trade is booming and this is creating jobs and opportunities in both countries. India is now the second biggest overseas investor and the second biggest overseas creator of new jobs, after the US, in the UK market. By strengthening links between smaller companies in each country we can increase the mutual benefits. The competition we are announcing today is designed to help to trigger this engagement."

Interested SMEs need to submit their entry forms by 12 October 2007. The forms and further information on the competition is available from: www.intellectuk.org/india. Additional projects that form part of the Intellect-NASSCOM partnership are planned for next year including a best practice website, workshops and a visit to the UK from NASSCOM.

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