Washington: Infosys Chief Executive Vishal Sikka has rebutted the general impression that the Indian IT industry is too dependent on H-1B visas for its business mode, amid repression of companies that abuse the system Of visas to hire foreign workers with low wages.
Mr. Sikka also believes that Indian IT companies need to take advantage of the opportunities provided by new technologies such as artificial intelligence to greatly maintain their global leadership in this rapidly changing infotech environment.
“It is incorrect to say and think that we depend on H-1Bs. For example, if we look at the last 10 years, there are about 65,000, something like that, H-1B visas granted every year. Millions of people, Infosys only has 200,000 employees, TCS nearly double, and so on, “Mr. Sikka told the Indian Press Trust news agency in an interview.
Therefore, the assumption that Indian IT companies rely on H-1B visas is not correct, he said in response to a question about the charges that the business model of Indian IT companies is based on H-visas -1B, such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS are expected to be hit by the repression of the Trump administration against companies that abuse the visa system.
In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to raise this issue with US President Donald Trump during his White House meeting here next week.
During his extensive telephone conversation from Palo Alto in California, Mr. Sikka acknowledged that in the last decade and a half, there was much use of H-1B visas. “But, ultimately, it’s always been about delivering value,” he said.
“The Indian IT industry has provided a tremendous amount of value, especially in the US. But the nature of value delivery is changing dramatically. As in the past it was easier and it was possible to move jobs to the India or companies where A lot of work could happen in India, so this type of global or on-site delivery model, offshore and so on … More and more work can now be done with automation “, He said.
Responding to another question, Mr. Sikka said that as more and more work is becoming automated, Indian IT companies need to focus much more on innovative areas.
“Like artificial intelligence (AI), such as automatic learning, such as Internet openings and you know, voice interfaces and chat interfaces, virtual reality, cyber security and such things,” he said. .
“So we need to focus deeply on embracing automation and AI for that part of our world that is being automated and becoming much more innovative in the new parts of our work. I think that’s what the future is going to be It’s all that, every aspect of our life is being transformed by software. Every aspect of our life is being transformed by AI. And we have to embrace this, “said Mr. Sikka.
Indian IT companies, including Infosys, have embarked on this new path, he said. “I think in general we are, the industry is still in the early stages and I am very happy with what we are doing at Infosys.”
“We have also returned a lot in the last 35 years and now we have a plan to bring 10,000 new generation jobs here in the US in the next two years. We already started down that road, opened our first center already in Indianapolis, We are going to hire 500 people there for next year and we will have other centers that will be coming in the near future, “he said in response to a question.
He said that the Indian IT industry is already contributing a lot to the US economy and will do even more.
“We are committed to the US economy, so I think that in addition to the hiring, local economy and contribution, it is about innovation, creating jobs with new types of skills,” Sikka said.
He said the 10,000 jobs they plan to bring in the US Are all highly qualified jobs and in new innovative areas such as AI, new interfaces, cloud-based technology and others.
“In order to do that, we have to train people. We are creating a lot of training programs and skills to help create these jobs, create these skills. All of our centers are not really centers of innovation where we offer customer value. Also training centers where we hire children from universities as well as adults and the ability or deskill them in these areas, “he said.
