IT companies worldwide have institutionalised the tradition of weeding out inefficiencies and non-performance and there was nothing new with layoffs in this key sector in India, top IT CEOs have said.

However, the slowdown in the US and the rising rupee have turned the spotlight on layoffs in software services companies, they said.

This view emerged on the issue of layoffs hitting the Indian IT sector in recent months at the Nasscom Leadership Summit 2008 currently underway here.

Right business model

The three-day summit organised by National Association of Software & Services Companies (Nasscom) is being attended by CEOs of top IT companies.

The CEOs said the sporadic cases of layoffs by software services companies have no relation to the economic slowdown or diminishing export returns due to the rising rupee.

Satyam Computer Services Ltd Founder & Chairman B B Ramalinga Raju said Indian IT companies have attained global standards with higher deal sizes and increased appreciation of acquisitions. “But growth is surely a challenge for IT companies and hence they have to adopt the right business models to tackle the issue,” he said.

CEOs would continue to invest in global opportunities even in the present scenario. “We will continue to grow, maybe not as fast as expected though.” Mr Raju said. Other prominent speakers at the seminar included Accenture Chief Operating Officer Steve J Rohleder, CapGemini CEO Salil Parekh, Accenture Delivery Centre Network Managing Director Pankaj Vaish and Symphony Services CEO & Managing Director Ajay Kela.

Heightened concerns

According to Infosys Technologies co-Chairman Nandan Nilekani there is “heightened expectation” of a possible economic slowdown the world’s largest economy.

“Clearly there are signs....there is a heightened expectation that there will be a slowdown in the US,” he said while declining to elaborate on impact of IT spending by US companies, major clients for Indian IT/ITes industry.

“People are still evaluating the impact of the likely slowdown on their IT budgets,” he further added.