Infosys Says Impact On Margins Depends On Trump Immigration Policy

New Delhi: There could be a short-term impact on margins depending on the immigration policies introduced by the new Trump administration in the US, Infosys has said.

However, the country's second largest software services firm added that local hiring coupled with next generation collaboration technologies can help mitigate the impact.

"We do hire local people by the thousands, and we'll have to adjust some of that depending on what kind of a policy is put into place."

"But I don't expect a huge impact of that. It will depend. There could be a near-term margin impact depending on what kind of a policy is put in and what has to be and by when it will go into effect and so forth," Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka said at a Credit Suisse event.

Mr Sikka said local hiring is good and that Infosys is also working towards developing computer science education and talent among both students and adults to address challenges like skills gap in the US.

"...a lot of that has to be done to really address the skills gap and the talent shortage that we have in technology... But my sense is that local hiring, a combination of next generation collaboration technologies like high definition video conferencing, virtual reality, these things can mitigate the impact of some of these things and we don't have to rely on visas so much in the future," he said.

Downplaying the impact of developments like Brexit and rising interest rates on business, Mr Sikka said IT companies have relatively small pieces of clients' spend and these things "don't have such fundamental impacts on our businesses as we tend to believe".

"There are many, interest rates going up and so forth that potentially have the potential to improve things in the demand environment. But generally, the important thing that I would like to recommend that we keep in mind is that, all of us in the industry, we tend to overplay the effect of macroeconomic factors on our business," he said.

On his expectations from the new Trump administration, Mr Sikka said he expects a more business-friendly and innovation-oriented atmosphere.

"...so there will be a plenty of opportunities to bring innovation into industries like banking and healthcare and pharmaceuticals and so forth, and to help create - bring about more digitisation, more real-time agility, more intelligence. And so, building new kinds of solutions like that, there is an opportunity for growth," he said.