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The
reverse tide
It is common knowledge that India is riding
the crest of the economic boom with considerable push from
the BPO sector. But less known is the fact that foreign professionals
are also making a beeline to jobs in the country. Ritusmita
Biswas reports
She can never stop missing London, the city where she was
born and spent 24 years of her life. But her heart now also
beats for Mumbai where she has been working for the last two
years. Meet Joanna Harris, a software professional in her
late twenties who first came to India to do a two-month survey
on the effects of the IT boom on Bangalore's economy. She
then worked in London and Vienna for a couple of years before
deciding to relocate to Mumbai as a marketing strategist for
a 'small company'. She learnt that the Indian work culture
and lifestyle can be addictive. "Compared to conservative
Europe there is a distinct open-mindedness in India, particularly
in Mumbai, about what the young can achieve," says Joanna.
Agrees Dennis Michel, an assistant content development manager
in an outsourcing company in Pune. “There is a human
face to working here and a lot of effort goes in to achieve
100 per cent results in India.”
Joanna and Dennis are not isolated cases of foreigners—mainly
Americans and Europeans—coming to India for jobs. Many
back home are willing to follow in their footsteps.
After decades of brain drain from the country, there is a
nascent trend of India emerging as a centre of gravity for
professionals from the US, Europe and Asian countries, particularly
because of outsourcing and job cuts in the West. According
to a study by a management consulting firm, India is the preferred
destination for the relocation of over 500,000 jobs over the
next five years from US financial firms alone.
In fact, globalisation has reached much beyond than expected.
Attracted by the sudden focus on India as the most preferred
outsourcing destination, even foreign interns have started
thronging Indian IT firms. Potential entrepreneurs, prospective
managers, likely employees from different parts of the globe,
are showing keen interest in getting trained at the development
centers in India.
Forty Interns from different countries such as the USA, Japan,
Canada, Germany and France gathered at the Bangalore campus
of the IT major, Infosys Technologies on June 3 this year
as a sequel to the Infosys global internship program, InStep.
InStep, starting out in 1999 with 300 applicants for 14 positions,
has now grown to enormously with 9000 applicants for 100 positions
from 70 universities across the world, including Carnegie
Mellon, Harvard, Wharton, MIT, London Business School and
Asia Institute of Management.
As far as the job front is concerned, with several of the
major American and European firms relocating their back-office
work in India where they can obtain “talented workforce
at a budget price” the business process outsourcing (BPO)
industry in India is booming. And this is what is providing
an impetus for several foreign nationals to relocate their
base to India.
However, most of them are visiting India not simply because
of job paucity in the West but because India has always been
a “dream destination” for them. Explains Erina Graff
working for a BPO company based in New Delhi: “A friend
of mine who works for the same company in Germany saw an advertisement
for the Indian office on their webpage and informed me. At
that point of time I was scouting for a job. This seemed to
be a good opportunity as I realised that apart from getting
a job I will be having a chance of visiting India which I
had always hoped to visit some day.” Graff does not mind
working at a ‘normal Indian salary.’ “The living
costs here are very low as compared to the US and I am quite
well off with the amount I get,” she says.
Confirming that post-BPO boom, there has been a reverse trend
with foreign nationals coming to India for jobs, Sudipta Das,
manager of a Mumbai based call centre recruitment firm says,
“At present at least one to two foreigners walk into
our office per week looking for a job. Besides, we also get
numerous (over 10 to 20) calls/emails for jobs in India from
people in the US and Europe. Till 2001, there were hardly
any foreigners seeking jobs in India but now the whole scenario
has changed. Especially in the BPO sector they are in great
demand as they can pick up the skills required like voice
accent very easily.”
Citing the reasons why a foreign national would seek a job
in India, London based career consultant Juthika Biswas says,
“The huge unemployment problem in the West has almost
forced the western workforce to work anywhere in the world.
But they prefer to work in India, mainly in the BPO sector
which is growing fast. This segment requires foreigners to
converse in the local language of the customer and know the
culture and customs of the native country. It is here that
they are finding jobs.”
Ian Madsen, director of Digest Research, however, contradicts
that an increasing number of foreigners are looking for jobs
in the Indian BPOs. “It is true that we have quite a
few Indian foreign graduates in our company, but no foreigners
as such. Moreover, even if foreigners do opt for our company
we are not likely to raise our pay to western levels,”
he avers.
“What we are looking forward to is professional development
of our Indian employees. If they can prove themselves, we
plan to promote them so that they can go up in rank and acquire
senior positions in the parent company,” he adds.
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