India's Offshoring Providers to Increase Onsite Assistance

With President Obama's fervent policy to keep as many American jobs at home as possible, Indian outsourcing providers are now scurrying to find ways to hold on to their business in the U.S.

India's IT-BPO trade organization, NASSCOM, was quoted as saying in news repors recently,“Protectionist overtures of the US government has got the Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) firms scurrying to gain its favor by revealing plans to increase their onsite presence in the next few years.

Outsourcing giant, Infosys Technologies Limited (NASDAQ:INFY) said that it would send approximately 5%-10% of its staff to onsite centers of its clients fairly soon. Infosys CEO Amitabh Chaudhary was quoted as saying, “while the move is driven mainly by company’s intent to chase the onsite component of their global customer’s business processing deal, there is also a political angle to it,” reports blog.infinit-o.com.

In reality, this strategy makes perfect sense in the current market as it offers onsite consultants for an offshore provider's immediate needs.

The NASSCOM statement comes as an answer to a plan to amend the H-1B and L-1 visa program. The plan was proposed back in April by Senators Dick Dirbin and Chuck Grassley. The proposal stipulates that employers interested in hiring employees on a guest-H1 visa, would have to ensure that have made all attempts ("in good faith") to hire U.S. workers first.

DNA India reported, “This means foreign firms — including Indian players — working on projects in the US would have to maintain a minimum 50% ratio of local workers.”