Hyderabad: As measures to keep Indian IT/ITeS sector away from the consequences of global economy slowdown, Nasscom, a trade body and the chamber of commerce of Indian IT&BPO industry, is planning to play its role in exploring new markets in Europe and Africa which is aiming at improving the growth of Indian IT/ITeS.

Nasscom put forwards the strategy of improving productivity before Indian IT companies to ease out margin pressures.

Som Mittal, President, Nasscom opined that it is a challenging economic environment. Globally inflationary pressures are continuing along with skyrocketing oil prices. This has put pressure on the margins of IT companies. However, this is a transition phase as companies are looking at improving productivity by measures such as reduced hiring and better space utilization. We expect utility rate of many companies to go up from 70 percent to about 74 percent in a year.

Additionally, he added that there are new opportunities in global market for out sourcing. And we need to develop new skills and abilities to cash in on the opportunities. As a major revenue for Indian IT sector is coming from markets in U.S. and U.K., Nasscom is now pointing the necessity of entering new markets in Europe and Africa. He also insisted the need of acquiring abilities like foreign language skills to attain new business.

"In the U.S., they have realized that outsourcing is not about shifting work to India but access to talent and resources. India can offer advantages in terms of time to market and business processes," he said.

According to him even the U.S. have realized that outsourcing is imperative for competitiveness. It is not only Indian companies that are getting outsourced work but US-based companies are also setting up captives to gain competitive edge. Job losses are not created by outsourcing technology work to India. Sub-prime lending crisis has lead to axing of jobs. In fact, it is the manufacturing sector that had experienced maximum job loss in the U.S.