Indian IT cos cheer Obama's victory, but visa still a worry

President Barack Obama has won a second term, fending off his Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, S Gopalakrishnan, co-founder and executive co-chairman of Infosys  and N Chandrasekaran, chief executive officer of TCS  speack about what Obama's resounding victory means for the US economy, India and the IT sector.

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Below is the edited transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18.

Q: We are hearing so much positive commentary suddenly from the Indian IT industry on Obama being reelected, despite the fact that this was the administration that went hammer and tongs against outsourcing. Now, all of you are saying this is business as usual. Is it also business as usual as far as the visa issue goes? This administration is the one that hiked the visa fees. Your margins have already taken a hit. Yet the industry is saying Obama is good for business.

Gopalakrishnan: We will work with them. You are not going to get everything positive, but this is something which we will definitely work through the industry bodies and try and convince them that they have to look at reducing the visa fees.

If you look at our own situation, some of the reasons why margins have come down are because of utilisation levels. Utilisation level, in the last quarter, was around 72 percent, excluding trainees. That means that from a normal utilization of 78-79 percent we are 6-7 percent lower. It means on the margin side we are actually impacted by 3-4 percent. Those are some of the reasons why there is pressure on margins and pressure on cost today.

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Q: Would you agree with Gopalakrishnan, when he says that it's going to be business as usual, as far as the Indian IT industry is concerned? We did see a lot of threat of legislative action against off shoring and outsourcing, but none of that actually came through. What do the next four years then mean for India and for the IT industry?

Chandrasekaran: From India perspective and from a world perspective, it is going to be a good focus on the economic agenda. There will be a recovery. I do expect that the US recovery is happening. It will get better now. There will be a lot of focus on jobs growth.

I think the technology industry is central to the way the companies will look at growth. So, there will be a lot of job opportunities for the technology sector. For Indian companies, I think we are very well positioned to partner with American companies and help them in their journey, which will eventually result in jobs growth both in India and in the United States and in other parts of the world.