It is election time in the US and all politicians are talking against outsourcing and job-cuts. What kind of impact will the US elections have on outsourcing?
The elections may not necessarily have any impact on outsourcing. America is still a very strong capitalistic economy (despite the government bailing out companies, which I think is a very special scenario) and the CEOs there have a mandate to maximise shareholder value and profits.
It is still profitable for them to outsource to India, and I don't think that economics has still gone out of the way.
The repercussions of what has happened to a few companies in the US were felt all over the world. In this background, how will you look at globalisation?
While the Indian IT industry is tightly tied to the global economy, the overall Indian industry is not so tied. Yes, to some extent, the foreign exchange reserves do have an impact. The IT industry has created reasonable number of jobs, but the rest of the industry has created just as much. The rest of the industry has its legs.
If Indian industry was a lot more integrated as a whole (and not just IT), the impact might be larger, but I think it is still more tied to the IT industry than the rest. Also, there is capital crunch as the FIIs are not coming into India and throwing money into projects.
However, I believe that increasingly, over the next 30-50 years, the world will become one connected entity.
I must tell you the European market has not felt the impact that much.
Image: A tutor falls asleep on her desk at TutorVista headquarters in Bangalore. | Photograph: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
Also read: Ratan Tata's words of inspiration
Advertisement
