Bangalore, November 8 2012: The return of President Obama to another four years of leadership in the US has seen the Indian IT industry generally expected ‘business as usual’ in their biggest market, without any marked alarm at the Democrats’ anti outsourcing noises in the run up to the elections.
Speaking on the sidelines of their annual Product Conclave here, which opened even as Obama’s return was confirmed by the TV Channels, NASSCOM President Som Mittal told the media that the US would see that India was part of the solution ( and by implication not part of the problem) when it came to unemployment – which he reminded was mostly in the manufacturing sector.
“Indian IT companies have created over 250,000 jobs in the US and contributed $ 5 billion to the US economy” he reminded – and was hopeful that minor irritants like work visas would be sorted out once the inexorable logic of the Indian IT contribution was driven home. He said NASSCOM would urge the US to go in for a system of work permits – similar to what India, China and many European nations have put inplace.
In other comment, N Chandrasekaran, CEO & MD TCS said : "We would like to congratulate President Obama for winning a second term in office. Now the focus will be on driving economic growth, which will lead to increased prosperity and greater job creation in the US, as well as act as a catalyst for growth across the world. Technology will play a strong role in driving the next phase of growth and Indian IT companies will have opportunity to play a significant role to partner with US companies to achieve this. This will lead to further job creation in the US and other parts of the world".-
Vineet Nayar, Vice Chairman & CEO, HCL Technologies said “I congratulate President Obama on his re-election as the President of United States of America. I hope his new tenure will uplift the business sentiment and strengthen the economic and political stability of America. We at HCL Technologies are committed to supporting American corporations and American people on this journey of renewed growth.”
Says Partha Iyengar, Vice President, and OT Management, Country Manager - Research, Gartner India :There will no negative impact of the US election on Indian IT. A lot of the negative sentiments was poll rhetoric that will die down completely now. In fact, now that the election is over, enterprises will get back to ‘business as usual’, which is good news overall for the Indian IT industry. The issues around outsourcing come up against the reality that the US is already – inspite of high overall unemployment – facing a big shortage of IT skills. To try and reduce that supply even further will be like shooting themselves in the head!