Brexit negative for Indian IT industry: Ex-Infosys CEO

Brexit is "negative" for the Indian IT industry in the short, and medium-term, former CEO and Managing Director of software major Infosys S Gopalakrishnan said on June 24.

Stating that uncertainty is not good for industry in general, and currency movements are going to be unpredictable at this point of time, he said one does not know now whether this is going to trigger a cascading set of reactions.

"So, in the short term, this uncertainty is not good for industry and it will be negative for IT industry too because of the uncertainty," the former President of Confederation of Indian Industry told PTI.

"Having said that, may be in the medium-term, a lot of these changes would trigger changes in IT systems. That means, some additional business for IT. In the short-term and probably in the medium term, this uncertainty is not going to be good for the IT industry," the Chairman of Axilor Ventures said.

Asked if the vote is going to be negative in the short and medium term for the Indian IT industry, the co-founder of Bangalore-headquartered Infosys said: "that is correct".

Responding to what strategy Indian IT industry needs to adopt now, Gopalakrishnan said: "Unfortunately, this is beyond the IT industry. This is the global economy. Since its the global economy, IT industry is a services industry, it has to wait for things to settle down".

In a historic development, the UK has voted to leave the European Union after 43 years, with 51.9 per cent Britons favouring exit from the 28-member EU.