At the time, Tata Consultancy had two offices in the state -- both in New York City to service Wall Street clients.
But a year after the tour, the company flew Clinton to join its chief executive, S. Ramadorai, in Buffalo for an announcement: It would open an office there.
Tata also signed a memorandum of understanding with a university research center to pursue discoveries in genetics, drugs and other areas. In a news release, Tata said that deal "will eventually lead to opportunities for training, recruitment and job creation in Buffalo."
"There was a sense of excitement on the part of the community," said Anthony M. Masiello, Buffalo's mayor at the time, "to have a company like Tata that would not traditionally look at coming to western New York."
But soon the company faded from public view, said Andrew J. Rudnick, president and CEO of the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership, an economic development group in which Tata was initially active. "They told us their business strategy had changed," he said. "The reality is that the number of people that Tata is employing here now doesn't seem to be significant."
At the University at Buffalo, Bruce A. Holm, director of a research center pursuing projects with Tata, conceded that the partnership had not played out as hoped. But he said that progress was still possible.
Tata officials say the company has hired 50 people from the Buffalo area in the last four years but most have left or have been transferred to other locations. They say the Buffalo operations remain important to the company and a part of the civic life of the city.
But critics say that Tata has done more to undercut workers in upstate New York than it has helped -- and that Clinton is wrong to argue that exposing U.S. workers to competition from foreign workers is helping both groups.
Since Tata arrived in Buffalo, "the reality is that it probably created many more jobs for workers overseas and displaced lots of American workers," said Ronil Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a prominent critic of outsourcing.
A report released by two senators said that Tata was one of the biggest users of foreign-worker visas in the United States, employing more than 7,900 visa recipients last year. The large number of visas suggests that companies are circumventing laws designed to protect American workers, Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in their report.
