06-25-2008, 05:53 AM
http://www.asahi.com/english/asianet/hatsu...atsu080502.html
India as an Emerging "Brain Power"
By Masanori Kondo Senior Associate Professor (Development Economics, Indian Economy)International Christian University, Tokyo
2008/05/02
PHOTOï¼Jansinee Kankaew
A friend of mine who lives in Koto Ward, Tokyo, told me, âWe have so many Indians living in our condominium that our notices come with English translations these days.â The number of Indian residents in Japan is now up to 17,500, and over sixty percent of them are IT engineers and their families. Among the Japanese community, they enjoy a favorable reputation as being polite and courteous neighbors.
These days many American companies have substantial research and development (R&D) activities in India. They are aggressively recruiting the best Indians as part of their global human resource strategy. This trend is backed by the emergence of India-born CEOs in major multinational corporations, including McKinsey, Citigroup, Vodafone and PepsiCo.
How are things in Japan, then? The total value of IT software exported by India to Japan was an insignificant three percent of its total IT exports. Though some Japanese companies hire Chinese employees, there are almost none that hire Indians to work at their company headquarters.
Besides, the number of Indian students in Japan is only five hundred. This is no match for the seventy thousand Chinese students that are in Japan, and it is even less than half the number of students from far smaller countries like Nepal and Sri Lanka. Interchange with Indians living in Japan is also limited.
Traditionally, Indians have always held a good image of Japan. Most of the Indian students who come to study in Japan develop a strong affinity to the country by the time they return home. However, as there are not many successful career patterns for âJapan experts,â Japan has become a less attractive destination for Indians to study. It leads to the vicious cycle of Japanese companies finding it difficult to enter the Indian market with little knowledge of India, and fewer Indians getting hired by Japanese companies.
Many Japanese companies tend to look upon India much in the same way as they viewed Southeast Asia that brought much success two decades ago. In other words, Japanese companies see India as a source of âlaborâ rather than âbrains.â A former high-ranking Indian official, who is a Japanophile, pointed out: âWhereas Japanese people tend to measure the intellectual level of the people of a nation by per-capita income, Indian elites assess the abilities of their opponents based on their English prowess. And that is what causes a psychological gap between the Japanese and the Indians.
Since only Japanese people are involved, accumulated information on India tends to become one-sided in Japan. There are plenty of cases where failures and setbacks in business and ODA all get blamed on the catch-all, âItâs the fault of the Indians.â That is quite different from what I heard from a South Korean business organization that has proved successful in India. An official claimed, âIn dealing with India, we have nothing to complain about. We simply stick to doing what the Romans do.â
According to Prof. K. Momaya, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi welcomes some fifty delegations from Japan every year. But alas, there are precious few cases where these visits actually lead to some concrete project getting implemented. Delegations from the United States, Europe and South Korea are much less in number, but they constantly leave their mark and bear fruit in such forms as new labs, joint research and recruitment.
Unfortunately Japan has a reputation across India as a country that keeps on dispatching large delegations with no follow-ups. It has to be reminded that there are two hundred IIT graduates working in Japan. Most of them work for non-Japanese companies, Including the top official of Citibank in Japan. It makes more sense to meet these graduates here in Japan for information exchange before sending fruitless delegations to India.
India as an Emerging "Brain Power"
By Masanori Kondo Senior Associate Professor (Development Economics, Indian Economy)International Christian University, Tokyo
2008/05/02
PHOTOï¼Jansinee Kankaew
A friend of mine who lives in Koto Ward, Tokyo, told me, âWe have so many Indians living in our condominium that our notices come with English translations these days.â The number of Indian residents in Japan is now up to 17,500, and over sixty percent of them are IT engineers and their families. Among the Japanese community, they enjoy a favorable reputation as being polite and courteous neighbors.
These days many American companies have substantial research and development (R&D) activities in India. They are aggressively recruiting the best Indians as part of their global human resource strategy. This trend is backed by the emergence of India-born CEOs in major multinational corporations, including McKinsey, Citigroup, Vodafone and PepsiCo.
How are things in Japan, then? The total value of IT software exported by India to Japan was an insignificant three percent of its total IT exports. Though some Japanese companies hire Chinese employees, there are almost none that hire Indians to work at their company headquarters.
Besides, the number of Indian students in Japan is only five hundred. This is no match for the seventy thousand Chinese students that are in Japan, and it is even less than half the number of students from far smaller countries like Nepal and Sri Lanka. Interchange with Indians living in Japan is also limited.
Traditionally, Indians have always held a good image of Japan. Most of the Indian students who come to study in Japan develop a strong affinity to the country by the time they return home. However, as there are not many successful career patterns for âJapan experts,â Japan has become a less attractive destination for Indians to study. It leads to the vicious cycle of Japanese companies finding it difficult to enter the Indian market with little knowledge of India, and fewer Indians getting hired by Japanese companies.
Many Japanese companies tend to look upon India much in the same way as they viewed Southeast Asia that brought much success two decades ago. In other words, Japanese companies see India as a source of âlaborâ rather than âbrains.â A former high-ranking Indian official, who is a Japanophile, pointed out: âWhereas Japanese people tend to measure the intellectual level of the people of a nation by per-capita income, Indian elites assess the abilities of their opponents based on their English prowess. And that is what causes a psychological gap between the Japanese and the Indians.
Since only Japanese people are involved, accumulated information on India tends to become one-sided in Japan. There are plenty of cases where failures and setbacks in business and ODA all get blamed on the catch-all, âItâs the fault of the Indians.â That is quite different from what I heard from a South Korean business organization that has proved successful in India. An official claimed, âIn dealing with India, we have nothing to complain about. We simply stick to doing what the Romans do.â
According to Prof. K. Momaya, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi welcomes some fifty delegations from Japan every year. But alas, there are precious few cases where these visits actually lead to some concrete project getting implemented. Delegations from the United States, Europe and South Korea are much less in number, but they constantly leave their mark and bear fruit in such forms as new labs, joint research and recruitment.
Unfortunately Japan has a reputation across India as a country that keeps on dispatching large delegations with no follow-ups. It has to be reminded that there are two hundred IIT graduates working in Japan. Most of them work for non-Japanese companies, Including the top official of Citibank in Japan. It makes more sense to meet these graduates here in Japan for information exchange before sending fruitless delegations to India.