The recent focus among Indian IT firms to offshore more work in order to cut cost for clients is impacting some of the smaller European countries that serve as near shore centres.
“The near shore strategy for IT vendors is driven by the requirement of their clients in US and UK. With clients focused on rationalising cost issue there is a push towards offshoring,” said Barry Clarke, Senior Vice President, India- Invest Northern Ireland. However, he said that so far none of the IT firms having centres in Northern Ireland have laid off employees.
Meanwhile a 16 member delegation team from Northern Ireland is in India to develop business and education links. Along with the focus on engineering, aerospace, and IT the delegation also want to focus on research and development (R&D) activity and also targeting recycling industry.
This year’s delegation also has representation from universities like Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Ulster. The university representatives will be meeting one of the top tier IT firms in India for the firms global internship programme.
“We will be meeting this IT firm as it has a global internship programme and we want to develop university and R&D relationship with them,” added Clarke.
Apart from focusing on investments to Northern Ireland, the delegation also has a group of firms who already have presence in India and plans to perhaps strengthen it further. Some of the firms are Delta Print and Packaging, which has joint venture packaging plants near Chennai, diagnostic systems manufacturer Randox Laboratories and SRS, a concrete block production machinery maker. Other than these, Red Sky Group has an office in Chennai as well as substantial business in facilities management services with India-based companies.
“The team here recently decided that when it comes for attracting investment, we will have a proactive approach towards large coporates and a vertical focus for the smaller firms. We are looking at firms who might be small in size but have niche focus area, or are into research and development or into product development. We will be meeting with all major Indian corporate house,” said Clarke.
Since 2001-2009 Indian firms have invested close to $300 million in the region. Some of the leading Indian firms in Northern Ireland are HCL Technologies, Firstsource, Tech Mahindra and Polaris Software. Close to 3,500 locals are employed by Indian firms.
