India's information-technology industry, the engine of the nation's economic resurgence, is losing steam.

A decade ago, a host of Indian companies -- led by Infosys Technologies Ltd., Wipro Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. -- shot to global prominence by helping fix the 'millennium bug' that threatened to crash many of the world's computers at the end of 1999. Often growing at 40% a year or more since, they quickly helped build a global tech-outsourcing industry that has changed how the world does business and how it views India.

Now that growth is slowing sharply. The credit crunch and spending slowdown in the U.S. are hurting the companies' biggest market, while a cheaper dollar shrinks their profits. Longer-term problems are surfacing. Competition is rising from other low-cost nations, ranging from Eastern Europe to the Philippines and Vietnam. And India's own success has raised labor expenses, cutting into the companies' low-cost advantage just as their revenue growth is slowing.

Infosys expanded its corps of software engineers by one-third between 2006 and 2007, adding 15,000 people. Its average salaries are rising 12% a year, and increasingly high turnover is forcing the company to spend more on training. Growth in profits fell to 18% in the most recent fiscal year, which ended March 31, compared with 56% the previous fiscal year. Tata Consultancy Services posted just a 4.9% increase in net profit in its latest quarter, compared with 37% in the same period a year earlier. Wipro's earnings growth slowed similarly, to 11.6% in the fiscal year ended March 30, down from 42.3% in the previous year.

The Indian tech industry's trade group, Nasscom, projects revenue to grow at 20% to 25% in coming years -- still heady by the standards of most industries, but barely half the recent rate. 'The first round of growth is always easier,' Nasscom President Som Mittal said last month. 'The next 10 years is going to be different.'

To compensate, India's outsourcing giants are trying to pivot into more ambitious -- and in some cases unfamiliar -- enterprises. In a project called 'ShoppingTrip360,' a team of Infosys engineers is pitching retailers on a wireless-equipped shopping cart that charts the most efficient path through a store based on a consumer's shopping list. Wipro won a contract to help design a water-flow system for the toilets in Airbus's new A380 superjumbo jet. Tata Consultancy Services has set up an 'Innovation Lab' in Chennai where, for instance, engineers are trying to develop software that airlines could use to improve their customer service; the idea came from TCS executives' own airline peeves.

The efforts haven't yet been much help to the bottom line. Basic outsourcing remains the overwhelming share of their business -- 84% in the past fiscal year, according to Nasscom. But the revenues of Wipro's product-development unit rose by almost 50% in the past two years combined, to $686 million last year. The Indian tech firms are hoping they can leverage their ties to companies around the world to sell them on new ventures.

'We're in a challenging environment for growth,' said S. Ramadorai, chief executive at TCS, India's largest technology company by sales, in an interview in Mumbai. The next opportunities won't be based merely on low-cost labor, he said, but on 'innovation and strategy.'

The industry's predicament is a rare setback for India's greatest business success story. In some recent years, technology companies have combined to hire more than 300,000 workers to keep up with soaring demand, as large Western companies sought to cut costs by sending back-office work overseas.

The change comes as India's broader economy already is slowing. Economists estimate that growth in gross domestic product will ease to between 7% and 7.5% this fiscal year, after five years of averaging almost 9% annually. The Indian economy depends heavily on service industries for expansion, and technology -- though a small piece of the overall pie -- has been India's fastest-growing sector for several years. It accounted for 4.5% of India's GDP in the year ended March 31, up from 2.5% in 2004. In contrast, agriculture, India's staple, has declined to 17% of GDP from 20% during that period.

The tech boom has especially transformed the southern cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad. American and European architects designed steel-and-glass high rises surrounded by manicured, palm-lined campuses, as a rural, developing region evolved into a driver of the globalization of the technology industry.

Global Phenomenon

Of course, tech outsourcing as a global phenomenon remains relatively new, and India's giants are still well-placed to gain a big share of new work. About 11% of the $1.7 trillion spent on technology world-wide last year was sent to tech outsourcers, according to the industry. The same companies also do outsourcing of back-office operations such as payroll processing, as well as call centers, though recent growth there also is reduced. 'There is so much of outsourcing yet to be done,' said K.R. Lakshminarayana, chief strategy officer at the Wipro Technologies division. 'There is enough head space for all of us.'

But snags started appearing two years ago. India's rupee, the currency in which the industry's costs are measured, began appreciating against the dollar. Most of the companies' sales were in dollars, so their revenues were worth relatively less when translated back to rupees. Between June 2006 and earlier this year, the rupee rose 16.4% against the dollar to 39.3 rupees from 47, though it has since given back about half of that gain.

Investment from private-equity firms and venture capitalists in India's smaller technology companies also started drying up, as investors became jittery over a stronger rupee and the U.S. slowdown. In the first half of 2008, such investments fell by 63% from the same period a year earlier, to $151 million, according to Chennai-based research firm Venture Intelligence.

The industry's frantic hiring drained the pool of skilled workers, drove up wages and increased turnover as employees job-hopped for more pay. The attrition rate for employees at Infosys was 13.7%, up from 11.2% in 2006.

To replenish the pool of recruits, India's tech giants are spending more on training and on educational initiatives at Indian universities, efforts that add to their expenses. Infosys sends trainers to nearly 500 colleges to teach engineering-school instructors how to foster discussion and collaboration in classes and rely less on rote memorization. TCS this year is training 1,500 college graduates who studied science to learn computer programming and communication skills, at a center it built for that purpose in Chennai.

The industry's biggest blow came last summer, when the meltdown in the U.S. subprime-mortgage industry and ensuing credit crisis froze new business from global banks and other financial institutions, which bring in close to half of the industry's revenues.

Earlier this year, TCS said two Wall Street banking clients had put a freeze on their tech spending until they could cope with the fallout. The Indian company now says that it expects sales in the banking sector to improve in the coming quarters. But other banks are asking for price reductions.

India's wage inflation, currencyappreciation and high labor turnover have also started pushing tech work to smaller competitors in Eastern Europe and the Philippines that don't have the same problems. For example, Siemens AG has moved its in-house customer-service centers away from India. Over the past two years, Siemens has hired 1,500 workers to staff a customer center in Manila, where the company says the spoken English is closer to the American dialect of its U.S. customers. In the Philippines, Siemens says it has a 2.5% monthly turnover rate, compared with the 20% turnover it had in its India call center.

'India is still one place where a cost benefit is possible, but not always as much as it was before,' says William McNamara, head of IT strategy for the company's North American office.

All that has added pressure on India's technology companies to find other sources of sales. In a departure from the tech companies' usual reliance on tech services provided at the behest of a customer, they are increasingly developing products on their own, then trying to pitch them to customers.

作为印度经济增长的发动机，该国信息技术产业正在逐渐失去发展动力。

10年前，在Infosys Technologies Ltd.、Wipro Ltd.和塔塔咨询服务公司(Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.)的引领下，一批印度企业因帮助解决了"千年虫"问题而在全球名声大振，这一问题1999年底时曾有导致全球无数台电脑瘫痪的危险。自那以来，印度信息技术产业的年增长率经常达到40%甚至更高，在其推动下一个全球布局的科技外包行业迅速形成，这一行业的诞生改变了全球企业的经营模式，也改变了世界看待印度的方式。

而印度信息技术产业的增长速度现在却正急速放缓。信贷危机以及企业支出增长放缓正在使印度信息技术产业最大的市场美国遭受损害，而美元走弱又使印度这一行业的利润出现缩水。一些中、长期问题也随之浮出水面。从东欧到菲律宾和越南，来自其他低成本国家的竞争正在加剧。而印度自身的经济成功已推高了该国的劳动力成本，使印度信息技术企业在收入增长逐渐放缓之际自身的低成本优势也在丧失。

在2006至2007年期间，Infosys的软件工程师队伍每年增长，扩编人数达到15,000人。该公司员工的工资年增幅平均达到12%，而越来越高的员工流失率则迫使这家企业将更多财力用于员工培训。在截至3月31日的上一财政年度，Infosys的利润增长率降至18%，而它此前一财年的利润增幅高达56%。塔塔咨询服务上一季度的净利润增长率只有4.9%，远低于去年同期37%的水平。Wipro的利润增速同样慢了下来，在截至3月30日的这一财年只有11.6%，而此前一个财年的利润增速是42.3%。

据印度国家软件和服务公司协会(Nasscom)预计，印度信息技术产业未来几年的收入年增长率将在20%至25%之间，虽然以大多数行业的标准来衡量这一增速仍然强劲，但它却只是往年增长速度的一半。Nasscom的会长索姆·米塔尔(Som Mittal)上月表示，第一轮的增长总会容易些，未来10年的增长局面将会不同。

为了抵消信息技术行业方面的增长乏力，印度的外包巨头们正尝试着启动一些更雄心勃勃的事业，虽然在有些业务上他们还是生手。在一个被称做ShoppingTrip360的项目中，Infosys的一批工程师正在以零售商为目标客户开发一种配有无线设备的购物手推车，这种智能手推车会根据顾客列出的购物单为他画出在店内最便捷的购物路径。而Wipro则赢得了一份为空中客车(A380)宽体客机设计洗手间水流系统的合同。塔塔咨询服务已在金奈建立了一个"创新实验室"，为航空公司设计改善客户服务的软件便是该实验室工程师们的一项工作，塔塔咨询服务的高管们受自己乘飞机时不愉快的经历启发，产生了这个业务开发创意。

不过这些努力尚未对印度信息技术企业的利润产生太大提振作用。基本的外包业务仍然是它们生意中绝对的大头，据Nasscom称，上一财年这块业务在总体业务中占据了84%。但Wipro产品开发子公司过去两年合计的收入却也增长了将近50%，去年达到6.86亿美元。印度的科技企业希望，它们能借助自己在全球的广泛业务联系向各国企业出售新的产品和服务。

塔塔咨询服务公司是印度销售额排第一的科技企业，该公司首席执行长S·拉马德瑞伊(S.Ramadorai)在孟买接受采访时说，我们的业务增长环境充满了挑战性，下一轮增长机会不会只建立在低成本劳动力的基础上，而要以"创新和策略"为本。

对于创造了印度商业史上最大辉煌的印度信息技术产业来说，目前遭遇的这种困境还是件稀罕事。过去几年中，为了满足不断飙升的市场需求，印度科技企业雇佣的员工超过了30万。西方大企业为削减成本纷纷将后勤服务岗位迁往海外，这给印度的外包企业创造了大量商机。

在印度科技企业的增长前景开始转黯之际，该国经济的总体增长速度也已放慢。经济学家们估计，印度本财年国内生产总值(GDP)的增速将减缓至7%到7.5%，而此前5年该国GDP的年均增长速度接近9%。印度的经济增长高度依赖服务业，科技产业虽然在印度经济中所占比例不高，但过去几年却是该国增长最快的行业。在截至3月31日的财年中，科技产业在印度GDP中所占比例为4.5%，高于2004年时2.5%的水平。与之形成鲜明对比的是，作为印度主要产业的农业在此期间占GDP的比例却从20%下降至17%。

印度科技产业的繁荣对南部城市班加罗尔和海德拉巴的改变尤其显著。那里的市中心已耸立起一批由欧美建筑师设计的玻璃幕墙大厦，周边则环绕着棕榈夹道、草坪齐整的科技园区。这些昔日以农业为主的欠发达地区正在成为科技产业全球化潮流的主要推动力量。

当然，作为一种全球现象，科技外包相对而言仍属新生事物，印度的外包业巨头依然在大量获得新订单方面居于有利地位。行业数据显示，去年全球1.7万亿美元科技支出中约有11%流向了科技外包企业。那些将科技工作外包出去的企业同时也将薪资核算及呼叫中心等后勤服务工作外包给其他企业去做，虽然这类业务的外包势头同样出现了减弱趋势。Wipro Technologies的首席策略长K·R·拉克什米纳拉亚南(K.R. Lakshminarayana)说，没有被外包出去的工作还多得很，从事服务外包的企业都有足够的施展空间。

不过从两年前开始印度服务外包企业的发展障碍就已日渐显现。这些企业以印度卢比计算成本，而卢比从那时起开始兑美元不断升值。由于印度这些企业的销售收入大多是美元，所以印度卢比升值会使他们兑换成卢比的收入相对降低。在2006年6月至今年早些时候这段时间，印度卢比兑美元升值了16.4%，由47卢比兑1美元升至39.3兑折合1美元，不过自那以来这一升幅已回落了近一半。

私人资本运营公司和风险投资家对印度中、小型科技公司的投资也开始枯竭，因为投资者对印度卢比升值和美国经济增速放缓感到担忧。据金奈的研究公司Venture Intelligence称，2008年上半年的这类投资较去年同期下降了63%，只有1.51亿美元。

印度外包产业饕餮式雇佣行为使就业市场上熟练白领员工的供应大为吃紧，这推高了工资水平，提高了员工跳槽率，因为人们有很多挣更高工资的机会。Infosys目前的员工流失率为13.7%，高于2006年时11.2%的水平。

为了确保能招募到足够的新人，印度的科技业巨头们正向职业培训和印度各大学的教育培训项目投入更多资金，从而增加了企业成本。Infosys向近500所大专院校派去了培训人员，教给那些学校工学院的讲师们如何在班上引导学生相互讨论和建立协作，减少对死记硬背的依赖。塔塔咨询服务今年正在其位于金奈的一个培训中心内训练1,500名大学理科毕业生，向他们传授电脑编程知识和沟通技巧。

印度外包业迄今遭受的最大打击发生在去年夏天，当时由于美国次级按揭贷款业遭受重创，随后又发生了信贷危机，全球许多银行和金融机构冻结了新外包业务的发放，而印度外包业近一半的收入来自这些公司。

今年早些时，塔塔咨询服务称它在华尔街的两家银行客户冻结了其科技支出，并表示在从信贷危机中缓过劲来之前不会解冻。这家印度公司目前表示，它预计面向银行领域的销售业务未来几个季度将出现改善。不过其他银行正在要求外包企业降低要价。

印度的工资上涨、货币升值以及居高不下的员工流失率也开始促使技术外包工作向一些东欧国家和菲律宾转移，后者尚不存在印度的这些问题。举例来说，西门子公司(Siemens AG)就把公司自办的客户服务中心迁离了印度。过去两年中，西门子已招募了1,500名员工以充实其设在马尼拉的一个客户服务中心。西门子说马尼拉人说的英语更接近美国口音。该公司表示，其菲律宾员工的月跳槽率为2.5%，而它在印度呼叫中心的员工流失率高达20%。

西门子北美办事处IT策略部门的负责人威廉·迈克纳马拉(William McNamara)说，印度仍然是一个有可能获得成本优势的地方，不过这方面的优势已经不如从前了。

所有这些不利因素都增加了印度科技公司寻找其他收入来源的压力。这些企业正越来越多地自行开发产品，然后努力将其兜售给客户，降低对被动式科技服务的依赖，后者是按客户的要求"照方抓药"。
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