Change is in the air in 2009. More so, in the case of IT companies. Enterprises are embarking on various forward-thinking approaches and new technologies. As the global economy slows down, and the macro economic situation continues to be challenging, IT companies are looking for ways to trim spending and improve their output. Technology trends in the networking market point towards growth. According to Naresh Wadhwa, president and country manager, India and Saarc, Cisco, The network and communications market will propel the growth of the router and switching market in India.

While banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and telecom service providers will remain key adopters in the market, the government is likely to emerge as a big spender due to various e-governance and state wide area network (SWAN) initiatives. His wishlist for 2009, says Naresh Wadhwa, include, new, interesting and cost-effective applications of collaborative technologies that enable enterprises to reach out to consumers in rural India.

The three major business challenges in 2008, according to Arup Roy, senior research analyst at Gartner, are: low-cost offshore business delivery model, currency fluctuation and high talent crunch.

According to Pallab Talukdar, director, Enterprise Business, Dell, Given the recession, the customer is more conscious while buying any product and the decision cycle become longer. According to Faisal M Paul, head ESS, marketing and growth Initiatives, HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd,

The biggest business challenge of 2008 which IT companies faced was the sudden drop in customer projects and buying pattern and hence IT companies are stretching to meet the orders and revenue commitments made at the beginning of 2008. The era of incremental benefits and long drawn out time-to-benefits seems to be over. Now customer would demand more quantum increases in value based on the new value frameworks emerging.

Both customers, organizations and IT firms would stick to no-brainer strategies instead of spiny strategies since the opportunity costs of failure would be magnified in the present context, Jalan said. Data Centre consolidation seems to be high on every leader s agenda to ensure optimal utilisation of existing resources and assets. According to Pallab Talukdar, director, Enterprise Business, Dell, The three major technologies in of 2009 will be a move towards Standardisation, Virtualisation and a unified communication fabric in the datacenter. Wadhwa agrees, Virtualisation will play a big role in the near future as IT organisations morph into more and more of a services management framework. Analysts at Gartner predict that technology trends like SaaS, virtualization and cloud computing, among others, are likely to shape IT and business to a large extent in the coming year. Also, adoption of green practices as a business imperative will intensify.