Robust growth despite offshore backlash

Indian IT industry braved the storms in the U.S., its largest market against outsourcing during 2003 and continued to grow as global corporations moved more work offshore to benefit from the country's low cost and quality.

Throughout 2003, the country's IT industry has had to adopt a stance that is both offensive as well as defensive as many American politicians tried to discourage outsourcing through legal means like presenting of bills in the parliament and also through lobbying.

A number of States in the US such as New Jersey introduced Bills that sought to curtail outsourcing to countries such as India in order to protect local jobs. A Colorado politician introduced a Bill to stop the H1-B visa programme. Indiana, another State, threw out a $ 15-million contract with Tata Consultancy Services. But more work was outsourced to India.

And, so far, none of the Bills or plans by US politicians to check offshoring have become a law nor a practice as Indian software industry carried out a silent but effective lobbying in the US against such tactics. So far it has been good, but what the future holds is very difficult to tell.

The Business Process Offshoring or Outsourcing (BPO) was the most high profit sector in the IT industry during the year. Thousands of jobs were created by BPO firms, as there was no dearth of business.

The year also saw some issues in the BPO industry coming to the fore when Dell and Lehman Brothers moved some of their offshored work back to the US from India, apparently due to lack of quality and service.