Nasscom plans to frame a standard definition of 'digital'

Hoping to standardise what comes under the 'digital' definition, Nasscom's executive council is busy framing out what could be called digital, as the business accounts for about 15% of the overall IT sector revenue.

Up until now, this used to be a loosely defined vague term which was used by everyone differently. However, a standard definition of the word digital would make meaningful comparison possible.

"The executive council is holding discussions to try and figure out how we can bring everyone onto the same definition because currently everyone is using a different one. They are working on it, it will take some time," Sushma Rajagopalan, CEO of mid-tier IT company ITC Infotech, told ET. She is the chairperson of the Nasscom IT services council and a member of the executive council.

A rigid definition of the word ‘digital’ is necessary because of the differences that arise when companies count their so-called digital revenues. For example., in its annual investor day in New York in October, Accenture claimed that it had over $7 billion in digital revenues and another $3.5 billion in revenue in cloud. While Indian IT companies typically include cloud revenues as part of their digital revenue.

"You are comparing apples to oranges to pineapples to doorknobs. And so we all know it but we are still doing it, because at this point, being vague helps everyone because no one wants to tell you that their digital business is moving people to the cloud, which is actually their infrastructure business," a long-time IT executive who declined to be identified told ET.

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