Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry may want to stem the flow of jobs, especially from the information technology industry, outside the US, but in India's Silicon South few were worried about the outcome of the polls.
According to IT industry executives, Kerry, if he becomes president, may at most pass laws that will affect certain operations, leaving most of the BPO sector untouched. Kerry is reportedly in favour of repealing tax breaks that encourage US companies to move abroad.
Sudip Banerjee, president, (enterprise solutions division), Wipro Ltd, felt that US policy would be the same, irrespective of the winner. On a positive note, he said the controversy over outsourcing had drawn the public's attention towards the IT industry, which was a good development.
According to Phiroz Vandrewala, executive vice-president of TCS, it is difficult for a big country like the US to change track in a cavalier fashion.
"In the realm of business-to-business contacts, no administration can do anything. The perception might be that things will change but the reality is different. Right now almost everyone is offshoring and outsourcing, but no one is talking about it," he said.
At Infosys, the employees seemed uninterested in the campaign or the likely result. The company's e-bulletin board, which provokes debate at the drop of a drop-down menu, has been singularly free of any kind of comment on the election.
Satyam is prosaicly practical. Said an executive: "The elections will not have any impact on our guidance. We are expecting tax incentives and also that we will be able to retain jobs there. We are expecting that offshoring will be encouraged a lot more."
Multinational IT companies have also taken the elections in their stride. At Intel, apart from a few expats showing interest in the US elections, work has gone on without a hitch. According to an Intel executive, American employees, currently in India, have sought postal ballots and have sent in their votes, but that's about it.
Several IT companies said they were unlikely to feel the pinch as large deals were being signed on a regular basis.
It is the younger generation, brought up on US TV shows, which has been touched by the election fever. Twenty-two-year-old Supratim Sarkar, a marketing executive in Wipro, has watched the campaign and the debates with interest. "The US elections are the greatest media show very four years," he says.
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