Global meltdown melts Valley software industry
Srinagar: Of the financial crisis the world is witnessing presently, Kashmir has begun to get the heat and the kill is Valley’s software development companies.
“We are a software development company and we sell our products in United States. We mostly sell the service based products to architects, engineers, lawyers, software developers etc. Since most of our clientele is from real estate world, so obviously as there has been a realty slump it has affected our sales too,” said Zia Ashai the proprietor of BQE, a Kashmir-based software development company at Software Technology Park Rengreth here.
Ashai said the “global economic instability” will restrain the companies like theirs in the Valley from achieving the desired targets. “Whatever growth we had projected for this years we will not be able to achieve it,” he said.
Ashai fears the crisis would not go somewhere immediately. “I think it will continue like this for at least five to six months. We wanted our sales to improve by 25 to 30per cent this year but now we expect a growth of only15 to 20 per cent.”
Some software companies here say the financial crisis in the world has made them to lose their customers. “We have overseas clients, mostly in the US, and no clients in India. Our growth prospects greatly depend on the investments made by the companies. However, with the global financial meltdown many a companies have failed to get required finances or withhold investments. Even many a companies have closed down,” said Jahangir Raina, CEO, I Locus IT enabled Services, at Rangreth here.
“I had very good contacts in many international companies and they were the people giving us the business. The crisis made many of them lose their jobs hence I am forced to look for new contacts in those companies,” he added.
However, the CEO said the slump was not much worrying for the technology market. He believes the US cannot be in trouble for a long period. “At sometime the country will definitely come out of the financial mess it is currently in. In the meantime we need to do our own work and focus on our quality. If we do so at present it will help us when the market is up again,” he said, adding that the company had currently focused on couple of customers in China. “They have given us some business,” he added.
(Greater Kashmir)