As biz models transform, it makes no sense to use old metrics to give guidance: Debjani Ghosh, Nasscom

Rishad Premji, Chairman, and Debjani Ghosh, President, Nasscom, chat with ET Now.

Edited excerpts:

How is the state of the IT sector in India?

It is incredible that the IT industry has grown at 9.2%. The whole story around digital is unfolding. It is moving more and more from being a proof of concept to industrialising.


Indian companies are building the capabilities and scales to address the digital demand. The culmination of the availability of talent from Indian companies building the competency to address it and the demand being there, are coming together.

There is a comprehensive CEO survey that shows optimism will be slightly better in 2019. So, why did you do away with the guidance?

First of all, we are at a point where the industry is on a complete high. It is a very different landscape. The industry has done tremendously well and we are also realising that one of the reasons for the industry doing so well is because it is transforming and the business models are transforming as well. At this point, it makes no sense to use the old metrics that we have always used to predict the future.

There is uncertainty all around. We are talking about US-China trade war, Brexit. Is that really a risk apart from digital skills that are available with you?

Any uncertainty presents a different perspective on how our customers which are enterprises perform. If the macroeconomic environment is going to slow down or if there is going to be a trade war which will impact the markets that our customers serve, or if there is going to be a challenge on mobility of labour, those are the risks that we have to prepare for. It is something we have got to watch out for but we are optimistic.