A
whirlwind two week tour of seven cities across UK and US and meetings with
clients reinforced the feeling that business confidence remains strong and the
likelihood of a second recession has receded in the first few months of this
calendar year. The voices being picked
up by our sales teams across the globe also do not reveal any reason to panic
with robust business inflows happening, not just in the West but also Australia
Asia, Middle East and Africa. Big ticket projects may be put under the
microscope particularly in the still sluggish Financial Services and Retail
segments, but lights on spending and smaller projects particularly in the
Cloud, Social Media and Mobility space will not be denied this year. The
weakening Indian Rupee too will help in shoring up profits or providing the
latitude to Indian IT and Business services exporters to invest in better
marketing which is a good thing in a sluggish market. So what if anything can
stop Indian IT from posting a high teens growth percentage for FY 13?
In spite
of the twenty-three percent growth guidance given by new industry darling
Cognizant and the recent upgrade in Accenture’s guidance, industry analysts
like CLSA are a little wary about the growth prospects of the larger Indian
providers due to the higher visa rejection rates particularly in the US and the
higher “Requests for Evidence” that creates significant delays in application
processing. The L1 visa rejection rates for Indian companies jumped to over thirteen percent in FY 11 in
comparison to an annual two percent three years ago, while the rate for most
other countries remains between two and three percent, clearly a case for a
discrimination discussion by the Indian Government.
My
personal optimism is boosted more by the mood one can see across the US. Tech
unemployment is almost non-existent and with both Indian and US firms stepping
up their local employment drives, CIOs are also discussing new ways of reaching
out to customers and optimize supply chains, the kind of discussion we always
prefer to cost reduction and “doing more for less”. In fact the jump in
apartment rentals in Silicon Valley suggests that innovation is alive and
kicking, which will also spur CIOs particularly in B2C sectors to accelerate their
spending on enterprise social media and mobility.
Whatever
be the growth rate we finally see, one thing is sure and that is the diversity
in employment we are seeing in the ranks of Indian IT firms. Ten years ago I
remember inaugurating a sales meet of our company in Las Vegas and chatting
with the coupe of American salespersons in the audience. This time the company
sales kick-off in Cape Cod saw eighty Americans and Europeans outnumber the
twenty Indians. Coming on the heels of our “all hands” meeting in Johannesburg
where eighty young black South Africans have joined the group this year, a
thought did strike “have we finally become proudly global?”
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This Article was published in the April Edition of DataQuest
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