The panic over the Trump administration's suspension of Green Card processes for eight major tech firms is overstated, according to Vineet Nayar, former CEO of HCL Technologies. Nayar pointed to hard data to calm the industry nerves: Indian IT companies accounted for fewer than 1,400 of the 117,849 PERM certifications processed last year. That is less than 2% of the total. The direct hit is manageable.
"I have spent more than three decades in this industry. So when I read about the latest US action restricting some large technology companies from using PERM, the route through which employees move towards permanent residency, I was less worried than the headlines suggested," Nayar said. He noted that HCL Technologies is one of the eight companies whose PERM process has been suspended, but he argued the broader ecosystem is more resilient than the media narrative suggests.
Nayar sees a structural shift rather than a crisis. The industry has already moved from a model where sending engineers to the US was mandatory to the current 'onsite-offshore' hybrid. Now, with visa friction increasing, he predicts a full pivot. "America is making it harder to move Indian talent there, while technology is making it easier for smaller teams in India to take responsibility for increasingly sophisticated work," he observed. The irony, he noted, is that US protectionism may inadvertently pull American work back to India.
This isn't about maintaining legacy code or fixing bugs. Nayar is talking about a leap in value. "The opportunity is architecture, product engineering, cybersecurity, AI implementation, industry solutions and eventually ownership of products and IP," he said. He urged Indian teams to stop merely receiving specifications from New York and start deciding what gets built. "Not merely maintain a global bank’s technology platform, but help redesign the bank," he added. This marks the end of the 'body shop' era for top-tier firms.
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu echoed the sentiment, urging Indians to stop chasing American visas and focus on building infrastructure at home. The diplomatic and legal battles over the PERM suspensions will continue, with the eight affected companies likely to seek judicial review. But for the Indian IT sector, the signal is clear: stop selling labor hours, start selling intellectual property.