Jerry Rao, Chairman and CEO, Mphasis BFL has taken over as the Chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, the apex trade body of IT companies, for the year 2004-05.

Tata Consultancy Services CEO S Ramadorai has been appointed Vice Chairman of Nasscom for the year.

Rao takes over from Som Mittal, President and CEO of Digital Globalsoft.

"Jerry has been actively involved in the activities of Nasscom and heads the recently formed Nasscom Security Forum. He is widely recognised both in the areas of IT software and services and the ITES-BPO space. His global experience, knowledge, and industry expertise will be of immense value to Nasscom," says Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom.

Mittal's tenure as the Nasscom chairman was at a time when the Indian IT industry faced one of its toughest challenges.

Even as the outsourcing model gathered steam, bringing with a host of contracts and renewed momentum to the industry, political pressure against outsourcing increased in the United States. The US is still the largest client for the Indian IT industry.

"Last year has been a challenging and exciting year for the Indian IT industry. Faced with outsourcing and offshoring issues, the industry has been able to successfully realign itself to get closer to the customers and also pro-actively communicate its strengths to global audiences," says Mittal.

Mittal says that he also focussed on bringing small and medium enterprises in to the Nasscom fold. Critics have long accused Nasscom of being the playground for the big boys of the Indian IT industry.

"SMEs are India's future engine of the software industry and therefore we devised a strategy to foster growth from SMEs and involve their active participation in Nasscom initiatives," says Mittal.

Karnik says that Mittal's achievements include focus on SMEs, trade development, focus on domestic market, sustaining competitiveness of the industry and global policy initiatives.

"The vice chairman is expected to bring enormous sagacity and maturity to Nasscom, with his long experience in the IT sector," says Karnik.

Meanwhile, Rao says that he will focus on issues like security and quality.

"My endeavour will be to establish India as a high-quality, secure, reliable software powerhouse and center for best practices in the BPO industry. We will continue to build on the global trade development programme and pro-actively engage with think tanks, policy makers and academicians. During this year, Nasscom will also attempt to put in place a long term vision for the industry and Nasscom, beyond revenue targets to focus on multiple parameters of industry's value proposition with measurable indices to define them," he added.