National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM)

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) is India’s trade body for the tech and business process sector. Founded in 1988 and based in Noida, it speaks for over 3,000 member firms and shapes policy on skills and exports.

NASSCOM is the main channel between India’s information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) firms and the government. Its corporate profile lists eight regional chapters covering Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

Specialised councils sit alongside those chapters: one for business process management (BPM) operators, one for software product firms, and one for global capability centres (GCCs) — the captive offices multinationals run inside India.

For buyers sizing up an Indian outsourcing partner, membership signals that the vendor accepts industry codes on data privacy, security, and reporting. Non-members can still be excellent — treat the badge as a first-pass filter, not a verdict.

Key takeaways

• NASSCOM is India’s non-profit IT-BPM trade body, founded in 1988 and headquartered in Noida.
• More than 3,000 member firms sit under it, spanning IT services, BPM, engineering, and product companies.
• NASSCOM’s Strategic Review 2026 puts FY2026 industry revenue near USD 315 billion, up 6.1% year on year.
• Headcount reached roughly 5.95 million on a net addition of about 135,000 jobs, growth near 2.3%.
• Membership signals acceptance of industry codes on data privacy, security, and reporting.

How it works

NASSCOM runs as a member-funded federation. Firms pay dues scaled to revenue, elect a chairperson, and vote through regional councils that feed a central executive. The body lobbies on tax and data policy, publishes sector research, and funds skilling programmes.

Dues scale with company revenue — a startup under USD 1 million in annual sales pays a nominal fee, while multinationals like Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys pay the top slab. Top-tier members typically hold council seats.

Each council sets its own agenda. The GCC council pushes skilling and city-level data, the product council pushes intellectual property protection, and the BPM council works on contract benchmarks. All of them report to the central board.

Research is where NASSCOM moves the conversation. Its Strategic Review 2026 puts FY2026 industry revenue at roughly USD 315 billion, up 6.1% on the year, with exports close to USD 246 billion.

The earlier Strategic Review 2024 had pegged FY2024 revenue at about USD 254 billion. Subtract one from the other and two years added roughly USD 61 billion of annual revenue.

Here is the number worth pausing on. Revenue grew 6.1% in FY2026 while headcount grew about 2.3%, a net addition near 135,000 jobs on a base close to 5.95 million. Output is rising faster than hiring.

Read together, those two lines say the sector is growing on skill rather than on seats. NASSCOM also reports more than 2 million professionals upskilled in artificial intelligence (AI), including 200,000 to 300,000 in advanced AI skills.

Revenue, export, headcount, and segment rows come from NASSCOM’s Strategic Review 2026. The GCC row comes from the GCC Annual Report 2024, cited below.

Examples

NASSCOM’s reach shows up in three places buyers actually touch: a national skilling platform, the research that guides captive-centre decisions, and the conference floor where Indian vendors meet global clients. Each one has a name and a track record.

FutureSkills Prime. FutureSkills Prime is a joint initiative with India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It certifies courses in AI, cloud, and cybersecurity.

The platform says it has empowered over 2 million learners and issues government-endorsed credentials. Indian BPO firms plug those credentials into internal upskilling tracks rather than building assessment frameworks from scratch.

GCC advocacy. NASSCOM’s GCC council publishes the GCC Annual Report, which multinationals like JPMorgan, Walmart, and Target consult when scoping India-based captive centres.

The 2024 edition counted about 1,700 global capability centres employing roughly 1.9 million people. It also tracked city-level distribution and a function mix shifting toward analytics and engineering — the higher-value end of captive work.

NASSCOM Technology and Leadership Forum. The forum meets each February and draws 2,000-plus delegates, among them government ministers and Fortune 500 technology chiefs.

For a mid-size Indian vendor, that week works as a matchmaking floor. It compresses meetings that would otherwise take a year of outbound effort into three days of scheduled conversations.

Related terms

The vocabulary around NASSCOM splits two ways: the service categories its members sell, and the policy levers its advocacy pulls. The cluster below covers both. It stops at India’s borders, because other national bodies speak for their own markets.

• Business Process Outsourcing (BPO): the parent category NASSCOM’s BPM council represents.
• Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO): higher-value analytical work NASSCOM research tracks separately.
• Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO): the software-services half of the IT-BPM label.
• Offshoring: the delivery model most member firms are built around.
• Shared Services: the internal captive pattern the GCC council covers.
• Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): the inbound capital NASSCOM policy work targets.
• Digital Transformation: the demand engine behind India’s IT-BPM growth curve.

FAQ

Buyers ask the same five things about NASSCOM: whether it belongs to the Indian government, how to verify a vendor’s membership, whether the badge is a quality certificate, what it costs to join, and how it compares with the global outsourcing bodies.

Is NASSCOM a government body?

No. It is a non-profit industry association funded by member dues and event revenue. It works closely with MeitY but sets its own agenda and elects its own leadership.

How do I check if a vendor is a NASSCOM member?

Search the member directory on nasscom.in, or ask the vendor for its membership number. Members receive a certificate and appear on the official portal, so the check takes minutes rather than days.

Does NASSCOM certify outsourcing quality?

Not directly. It sets self-regulatory codes on data privacy and cybersecurity, but formal certification comes from ISO, SOC, or HIPAA auditors. NASSCOM’s job is advocacy and standard-setting, not audit.

What does NASSCOM membership cost?

Fees are tiered by company revenue, starting around INR 25,000 a year for small firms and rising to several lakhs for large enterprises. Startups under three years old pay a discounted rate through NASSCOM’s DeepTech Club.

How is NASSCOM different from IAOP or GSA?

NASSCOM is India-specific and speaks for providers, while the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) is global and buyer-oriented and the UK’s Global Sourcing Association (GSA) covers the British market.

Explore more outsourcing terminology and provider directories to see how NASSCOM members compare with providers elsewhere.