Primarily, the software IT industry in India was worth Rs. 184.5 billion (US$ 4.2 billion). If the value of in-house development, which is taking place at many large corporates, is added then this figure would touch around Rs. 220 billion (US$ 4.8 billion).

This phenomenal growth and rapid expansion has not been achieved overnight. The C.A.G.R (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) for the Indian software IT industry revenues in the last six years has been 61.5 per cent. Here the C.A.G.R. for the software export industry has been 65.48 per cent while that for the domestic and local market has been 51.01 per cent. The Indian Information Technology (IT) and Information Technology enabled Services (ITeS) domains go side by side in every aspect. The IT industry has not only transformed India’s position on the global platform, but also accelerate economic growth by energising higher education and academic sector (especially in engineering and computer science). The industry has employed almost 11 million Indians and hence, has contributed a lot to social transformation in the country. Furthermore, Indian companies, across all other sectors, highly depend on the IT & ITeS service providers to make their business processes efficient and streamlined. Indian manufacturing sector has the highest IT spending followed by automotive, chemicals and consumer products industries. Indian organizations and cooperate houses are turning to IT to help them expand business in the current economic environment. IT is seen as a game changer and a source of high business value for organizations by 90 per cent of the respondents, according to a study conducted by VMware.

The ground work and point of focus for the growth of the information technology industry in India was led by the Electronics Commission in the early 70s. The driving force was India's most esteemed scientific and technology policy leader M. G. K. Menon. With the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under project IND/73/001, the Electronics Commission formulated and designed a strategy , and master plan for regional computing centres, each to have an individual purpose as well as to serve as a hub for manpower development and to spur the propagation of informatics in domestic and  local economies. The first centre, the National Centre for Software Development and Computing Techniques (from 1973 onward) was at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, located in Mumbai and was focused on software development. An important decision of the strategy was to not focus on large-scale hardware production but rather intellectual capital and knowledge development. The remarkable success of this decision can be seen in the global leadership of Indian entrepreneurs and computer scientists in software development. Jack Fensterstock of the United States was the program manager on behalf of the UNDP and also  the key advisor to the Indian Government for the implementation of this master plan.