The recent US legislation hiked the visa processing fees of employees of outsourcing company on HI B visa and another proposed bill advocates visa refusal to foreign companies that do not hire at least 50 percent Americans in their US offices. These recent developments on the American political front clearly reflect the growing frustration that has crept in the American society due to high unemployment rates triggered by recession. This will definitely hurt software outsourcing India fraternity. because it corners the maximum numbers of HIB visas issued every year by US.
The Indian IT industry has earned recognition as world leader in software outsourcing. India is home to world class software development companies that have developed and delivered cutting-edge IT solutions to worldwide clientele. US is major partner of the Indian IT industry and bulk of software outsourcing comes from US companies. However the recent developments in US should get the software outsourcing India fraternity thinking to explore new avenues that will help the Indian IT industry to sustain its IT dominance for a longer time.
The other Asian countries like China, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand are progressing rapidly in IT outsourcing arena. China ranks after India in software outsourcing and is fast closing in, to dislodge India from its number one slot. Hence software outsourcing to India will decrease if requisite steps are no taken right now. The priority is to reduce dependence on the American companies and correspondingly increase the focus on the European and Japanese markets.
The over dependence on the US markets and lack of knowledge of the untapped markets like Japan, China and Europe will create negative impact on the software outsourcing. India if it wants to retain its number one spot on the world IT platform should focus more on tapping European and Japanese markets.
There are language issues with Chinese, Japanese and non-English speaking European customers, which can be effectively sorted out by developing customized training programs that train the Indian IT workers to learn new language and web site intricacies of these cultures. The Japanese market offers abundant opportunities, which can be wisely tapped if Indian software out sourcing companies follows the right strategy. The aim should be to invest in Japan on a long term basis, because Japanese market discourages short term players.
China is a close a close competitor and best way to handle this growing competition is to penetrate the Chinese market through close co-operation with Chinese companies in form of offshore development centers in China. ODCs in China will certainly help Indian software outsourcing companies to penetrate easily the Japanese market because of cultural and geographic proximity of Japan and China. Hiring Chinese software workers well versed in Japanese language is the best option available to Indian outsourcing companies right now.
On European front the IT industry in India should try to capitalize on strong business relations that exist between European Union and India. The software outsourcing companies should pay more attention to the IT needs of the major European countries like Germany, France and UK, which offer great business potential for software outsourcing. India should encourage its IT industry to focus more on the new markets so that it can retain its number one spot for a long time to come.