Strong rupee to hurt IT margins in an uncertain biz environment

The second of a 4-part series looks at how a strong rupee is hurting some of top exporting sectors

Indian information technology (IT) services companies foresee a fresh impact of a strong rupee against dollar. Worse, this comes at a time when the business environment is tougher than ever — weak demand, rising visa and marketing costs, and so on. There is also pressure due to rising automation, which though is helping costs but taking away jobs.

While both large and midsized IT services companies have their hedging policies in place, a stronger rupee over a longer period of time may hurt their margins. 

Rupee closed at 64.2 a dollar on Wednesday (currency markets closed on Thursday) and has