MUMBAI, India (AP) — Indian outsourcing companies should expand their operations to other low-cost countries if they want to maintain their edge, experts said yesterday at an international software conference.Setting up call centres, back-office operations and software development hubs in Mexico or Eastern Europe would bring Indian firms closer to the companies they serve in the United States and Western Europe.

“Customers want services closer home in their own geographies,” said Padma Ravichander, president of Perot Systems India and Asia-Pacific, which offers information technology services to banks, health care and financial services companies.

“Companies must be more adaptable, nimble if they want to get the core businesses of their clients that often can’t be remotely delivered,” she told the three-day conference organised by the National Association of Software and Services Companies, India’s main software services trade group.