Outsourcing to India has helped the American companies to save a much as $8 billion in the last four years, said market research firm, Inductis.

The study also points out that General Electric saves about $350 million per year through the 18, 000 offshore employees it has in India.

Pointing out that the anti-outsourcing regulations like that of the New Jersey state makes for poor economics, the report says industry associations such as the National Association of Software and Service companies should work with government to productively take up the issue at the multilateral trade bodies.

The study also suggests that the country's software sector needs to take proactive steps to conduct campaigns about the economic benefits of outsourcing to India.

Indicating that the Indian software companies enjoy a high degree of recall with the US majors like GE, Intel, HP and IBM, the Inductis study says, Nasscom and large Indian software companies can generate positive opinion about outsourcing software development to India.

As a step that the individual companies needs to take to strengthen the outsourcing business model, Inductis says that the Indian companies should partner with the US companies with presence in the target market.

"There are several kinds of partnerships, ranging from marketing tactics to strategic alliance, worth of consideration. The fact that most of the Chinese companies are working as sub-contractors to branded US manufacturers like Mattel, may have helped them stay out of limelight. Others like Hong Kong based Espirit Holdings and German companies like Chrysler use establish American brands as beachheads for their push into the US market," the study says.

The report also suggests that the Indian IT companies should look at investing in the host nations.

"The Japanese automobile manufacturers, for a long targets of adverse attention in the US because of their growing market share, started setting up plants in the US in the 80s. These manufacturing plans, with their employment potential and knock-on economic benefits, have become sought after investments," the report points out.

It has also been suggested by the report that the Indian companies should use branding and value addition to mitigate negative perception.