‘IT industry fuelling craziness. It can afford higher visa’

Talk to John C McCarthy, vice president of Forrester Research Inc and you get ample whiff of the US sentiment against outsourcing offshoring.

The senior executive of the US technology research firm is dismissive of the concerns of Indian information technology (IT) sector on the US government’s recent protectionist moves.

“You think the $2,000 hike in visa (fee) is suddenly going to change the economics of Indian IT industry? Come on guys, like I said, stop looking at the glass half empty and start looking at it as half full. You are only fueling craziness,” said Mccarthy to a media query on US’ recent anti-outsourcing overtures and rhetoric.

The US government recently raised fees for H1B and L1 visa, which are extensively used by local firms to send Indian workers onsite for a project work, by $2,000.  It expects to fund its increased US-Mexico border cost through the fee hike.

McCarthy believes the domestic IT services industry is capable of absorbing this increased of visa cost, given the huge margins it operates on.

“The state has raised the visa fees. You know, we have huge budget deficit and you know these guys (Indian IT services vendors) are making margins. You do the maths on those (visa feet) raises; they are not significant when you look at what they are paying those people (techies) and what they are billing them (techies) at,” said McCarthy.

He further said the Indians should not “confuse rhetoric with actual moves.”

“The only thing they (US government) did was raise the visa fee. Otherwise, they (uttering of American politicians) are just comments. People (US) are trying to protect tech jobs when unemployment is historically high. You (Indian IT industry) gotta be little less thin skinned about it. I think that (reacting to US moves) is extremist in the same way as protectionism,” he chided.

Going forward, the McCarthy expects Indian tech vendors to hire more onshore. This, he said, would not affect their competiveness over the US players like IBM, Accenture, CSC and others as the gap between them was closing.

“The competitive gap (between Indian and US players) has narrowed dramatically. You look at the scale of IBM, Accenture, CSC and Capegeimini have here. They are the top ten employers in India,” he said.