India IT outsourcing industry may be spiraling downwards hurting India's GDP further

Changing US immigration legislation landscape, slowdown in capital spending on IT and competition from newer, cheaper sources of IT labor pool such as the Philippines and China is forcing the Indian IT outsourcing industry to metamorphosize into providing alternative models of outsourced services (see video). IT outsourcing has created more than 2 million jobs and in 2012 contributed 6.4% of India's GDP according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies, based in New Delhi. Already, IT outsourcing behemoths such as Infosys are being squeezed by revenue pressures and forced to try new strategies in an increasingly commoditised  market. Unless a new paradigm shift in IT outsourcing occurs, Indian IT outsources may spiral downwards further hurting India's weak growth prospects. Investors are strongly cautioned to diversify away from IT outsourcing linked equities and increase their exposure to US dollar denominated assets.

End of the IT Outsourcing era approaching - Indian IT industry risks collapsing

One after another IT outsourcing industry bellwethers like Infosys and today Wipro have posted lower than expected revenues. Cognizant and HCL seem to be battling this downturn by firing employees to contain costs. As the Economic Times has opined, the industry needs to look for a new revenue model or risk dying out (also see graphic from the article). I will add that there is a fundamental shift in technology taking place such as the move towards cloud computing with the evolution of software as a service.



The long term trend for the IT Outsources if they do not change their model (and perhaps its too late now for them) seems to be on a slippery slope downwards towards irrelevance. Shorting these companies are more safely - staying away from them completely in your portfolios is highly recommended over the medium to long term.