NASSCOM BCG Innovation Report 2007 Executive Summary

governmental involvement and correspondingly weaker involvement of other constituents but
have transitioned into a more mature ecosystem as other constituents have become more
active and infl uence of the government has relatively reduced to a more equal participation.
A relative comparison of the ecosystems based on the impact of constituents highlights that
the Indian ecosystem is in a relatively nascent stage. The system is weakened by the twin
effects of insuffi cient participation (in terms of roles being played) by different constituents and
also weak or negligible interactions between them.
While there is ample evidence to show that a vibrant collaborative ecosystem can generate
multi-billion dollar opportunities, these structural weakness are preventing India from becoming
a global hub for breakthrough innovations in the IT-ITES industry.
Eureka is a loosely coupled inter-governmental initiative in Europe which has 35 member
states and EU countries as full-time members. It has 11,000 partners from industry including
40% SMEs, research centres, universities and national administrations. It currently has
600 innovative projects underway with budget of Euro 1.8 Billion and since inception,
Euro 24 Billion have been raised and 1,800 projects have been completed – amongst them
were airline e-Tickets and digital radios. Eureka focuses on providing an ecosystem that
enables European fi rms, research centres and universities to collaborate and develop new
technologies. It promotes ‘close-to-market’ innovations by providing a support network
which provides branding and access to various resources and reduces cost, risk and time
to market for participants through collaborative efforts.
Recommendations for developing the Indian innovation ecosystem
The Indian innovation ecosystem faces several challenges with respect to the performance of
various constituents as well as the interaction sets between them. Some of the key ecosystem
challenges are:
• Insuffi cient mentoring and networking support for start-ups and entrepreneurs
• Lack of entrepreneurs focussed on IP development in emerging technologies
• Lack of knowledge sharing between IT-ITES fi rms and key user industries
• Severe lack of funding at the seed / start-up stage
• No platforms for all stakeholders to interact
• No market-place for innovation trading in India
• Tenuous partnership between industry and academia
• Lack of meaningful collaborations between industry and research institutes
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