Indian outsourcer sees big turnaround in demand

ONE of India's largest outsourcing outfits claims that punters are falling over themselves to outsource their operations again.

Infosys told the Wall Street Journal that it had seen a big improvement in consumer demand all of a sudden.

The company's head of banking and capital markets North America, Shaji Farooq, said that things are not as bad as they were.

However he cryptically said that he didn't expect to see any pick-up in IT spending any time soon.

Infosys needs to cautiously watch for three to six months before taking a judgement on where exactly the economy is going, he said.

So what is going on then? Well it seems that sales teams are going to punters with reduced prices in a hope to entice them back to the joys of outsourcing. Some customers are taking the bait but at levels that mean Infosys does not make as much.

Chief operating officer SD Shibulal said that Infosys continues to experience pricing pressure, even as it completed a large part of pricing renegotiations.

While it will keep Indian developers in chapatis it will not be good news for those onshore workers who will find themselves priced out of the market. µ