It is true that Indian IT workers are skilled and have good command over English language but clients feel more comfortable to deal with people who understand them even better than the Indians.
In order to fill this gap, the Indian IT companies have devised two new strategies. First, they have started to hire foreign workers. S Padmanabhan, Human Resources Manager, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has admitted that eight of every hundred of Tata’s workers are foreigners. The big names in Indian IT sectors have started to shift their attention to the foreign workers to meet up the demands of their clients and make them feel more comfortable in dealing with the company.
The second strategy is what S. Gopalkrishnan, Chief Operating Officer, Infosys, referred as “Near Sourcing.” The Indian firms are setting up their offices near their clients’ homeland and hiring workers from there. For example, to deal with American clients, Indian software firms are setting up their offices in Latin America; in the same way, China for Japan, Korea; and Eastern Europe to serve in Western Europe.
Hiring foreign workers has not started in full swing and one of the major reasons behind this is - cost effectiveness. Till now, the Indian companies depended heavily on their domestic workforce. So the overall expense was very low which attracted the western companies. However, heavy dependence on Indian workforce had its bad effects. One of the major problem is language barrier; the Indian workforce is mainly skilled in English but not in other languages.
Well, I think that it is very good news for the western IT workers. Till now, they were losing jobs for the Indian companies but now, they are being hired by the Indians. On the other hand, with this step, Indian companies have ensured long term continuation of their business in the western countries. The whole thing is a win- win situation for both parties. Don’t you agree?
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Posted by: Krissy | November 15, 2006 8:42 AM | Permalink to Comment