US polls: IT firms expect no change

The information technology industry doesn’t see much change likely due to the Republican party’s gains in the US mid-term polls.

If one looks at the second-quarter numbers of Indian IT companies, most have reported strong numbers and projected decent growth. The recent rhetoric in the US on reducing dependence on offshoring has not have had much of an impact, evident in the performance and the outlook.

Republicans, some note, are relatively pro-outsourcing. “It is not that Democrats are losing grip of the Senate just because they were opposing outsourcing. It is more to do with the overall macro-picture and it was predicted for a while about this,” said Puneet Jetli, a senior professional at MindTree, the software services exporter.

According to industry analysts, one should wait, with US President Barack Obama due to discuss this issue in detail with Indian corporate heads. “The fact that Republicans have got a grip over the Senate will not have a dramatically different impact on the Indian IT story,” Jetli added.

According to industry watchers, the Obama administration does not have much of a thinktank coming in from the corporate side, as was the case during the Republican tenure. “It’s early days still,” said Sudip Banerjee, CEO, L&T Infotech. “In general, we need think tanks influencing administration for globalising trade. We haven’t seen that sort of a robust corporate thinking set-up in the current administration. Hopefully, that should change,” he added.

He however noted there had not been much of an impact on the Indian IT industry in the recent past. “There should be more of corporate say and that may ultimately change the way of thinking,” he added.

Wipro’s brass, commenting more on the significance of the US president’s visit, noted that from an industry stand-point, they feel this will provide for easier trade and global collaboration in the technology space and boost free trade and globalisation across products and services.

Suresh Vaswani, Joint CEO, IT Business and Member of the Board, Wipro, said: “India and US are nations separated geographically but bound by the common values of democracy, freedom and the belief in competition and free trade. Today, we are at a point where our economies have become inter-dependent and the relationship is that of equal partners.”