US polls: Indian IT cos seek image makeover

As the US presidential election ramps up the rhetoric against offshoring jobs,Indias flagship software services providers are seeking an image makeover.

For Wipro,Infosys and others,multi-billion dollar outsourcing giants with US-listed shares,the challenge is to be seen less as a cheap Bangalore dump for US companies shipping work overseas,and more as responsible firms creating jobs and investing in Americas future.

If young people in America look at us as a career opportunity,we have succeeded, TV Mohandas Pai said six years ago when he was a board member at Infosys.

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Today,Indias $100 billion IT and BPO industry says it directly employs 107,000 people in the US,close to a third of whom are Americans.

The industrys makeover takes on a new urgency ahead of the US presidential election in November where jobs will be a crunch issue. US President Barack Obama has sharpened his criticism of US firms exporting jobs,seeking to tax them more and use that money to help those that keep jobs at home.

Im responsible for transforming the organisation into one having a look and feel of a US corporation … changing Infosys in USA to Infosys USA, Padmanabhan Rao,who heads the companys US operations,writes as his LinkedIn profile.

The outsourcing industry,championed by India but spreading to other Asian centres such as the Philippines,expects to hit $225 billion in annual revenues by 2020 an unrealistic target without strong growth in the US,the largest market.

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Infosys has 15,000 employees in the US,and will have hired another 1,200 locals in the past year. Rao said the goal for Infosys is to double local recruitment,and that may happen as early as the next fiscal year.

Indian outsource firms are willing to step up and do things a little bit different to show their investment in the US economy, said Helen Huntley,a vice-president at Gartner Inc,noting the tone of political debate has grown harsher in line with greater economic uncertainty.

When Tata Consultancy Services opened a centre in Cincinnati,Ohio in 2009,the state governor attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Wipros chairman Azim Premji wants as much as half his total staffing to be local,in the US and elsewhere. Wipro employs some 10,000 people in the US.