Noida, Nov 5 (IANS): The future growth of the Indian IT industry lies in innovation, creating more futuristic business scenarios and engineering digital disruption, Vice President Hamid Ansari said here on Saturday.

"The future growth of our IT companies will, thus, be in being able to create futuristic business scenarios and engineering digital disruption rather than coping with its aftermath. In short, you will have to be more innovative," Ansari said at the inauguration of the new Nasscom building here.

Talking about the role of the IT industry, the Vice President said the sector has been a major contributor to the Indian growth story in the last 25 years. It has provided improved brand image, created employment, contributed to gross domestic product growth, created avenues in technology education and contributed to e-governance. 

He said while the growth trajectory of the sector was well charted its challenges will come, in the shorter and intermediate term, from industry shifts such as cloud computing, evolution in Software as a Service model. 

There is a constant need to develop new products to embrace the challenges.

"These challenges will come, in the shorter and intermediate term, from industry shifts such as Cloud Computing, evolution in Software as a service models, need to develop new products, Digital Disruption, and shrinking manpower needs because of software automation. It is likely that your present and new clients will increasingly look for innovation partners rather than software partners," Ansari said.

Emphasising the central role of innovation, the Vice President said while the Global Innovation Index 2016 ranks India at 66 out of 128 countries, the government is proactive to create an innovation-friendly environment in the country.