02-20-2004, 09:28 PM
<b>Outsource Debate Resounds In India
February 19, 2004
By MICHAEL ONEAL, Chicago Tribune </b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->BOMBAY, India -- The increasing debate about white-collar U.S. jobs moving to India is alive and well - in India.
The growing election-year backlash against outsourcing drew standing-room-only crowds last week at an international conference put on by the country's leading technology trade association.
"When the Dilbert cartoon introduces an Indian character called Asok, you can see what the impact has been," said Arun Kumar, managing director of Hughes Software Systems, as he introduced a program on how Indian companies might respond.
"This is certainly something we should be concerned about," said Nandan Nilekani, chief executive of Infosys Technologies, one of the nation's largest outsourcing companies.
<b>Indians worry that a protectionist sentiment, fanned by election year rhetoric and sluggishness in the U.S. job market, will result in legislation restricting the kind of outsourcing work that has driven India's tech boom.</b>
U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., revealed plans for such legislation while he was in his home state on Tuesday.
State measures limiting the export of government jobs have drawn sharp attention. A recent move in the U.S. Senate to curb federal job outsourcing has caused more anxiety.
<b>Indian executives see the backlash as more than a little ironic. The rise of India's high-technology sector, they point out, is a direct result of the country's economic liberalization in 1991, a program launched with U.S. government support.</b>
In recent years, India's deep pool of low-wage, highly skilled, English-speaking "knowledge workers" has proved irresistible for U.S. companies looking to cut costs.
The Internet and other communication advances have made the shift possible. And as Indians take on more valuable work, such as product design and research, tech executives there are certain they can compete worldwide with the likes of IBM Corp. and Accenture.
Indian companies are reinventing the way programming is done, said Arvind Thakur, president of NIIT Technologies in Delhi, India.
By breaking what is widely considered a highly intuitive creative process into repeatable steps that can be done by less-skilled engineers, India is trying to create high-quality software factories, not unlike what the Japanese did with the assembly line.
India, Thakur said, has the opportunity to "assume the mantle of global leadership" in software services. U.S. executives routinely say they find the quality of work in India to be as good as or better than the work done at home. That's partly because even low-level employees who answer phones in call centers are likely to have college degrees.
The draw is strong enough that the number of companies putting their own operations in India has increased sharply, as positive results flow in from such pioneers as Motorola Inc., General Electric Co. and Intel Corp.
By next month, according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies in India, the nation's software and services sector will post total revenue of $15.57 billion, up from $5.54 billion in March 2000.
During the same period, the industry's employment has grown to 813,500 from 284,000.
The group estimates that exports of software and services - mostly to the United States - will rise to $12.20 billion in March from $3.96 billion in 2000, despite the sharp downturn in the U.S. economy. If growth trends hold, the association predicts that exports could reach $40 billion or more by 2009.
By itself, the industry represents only 3.8 percent of the country's gross domestic product. But the tech boom's effect on India's economy and psyche is much more profound. Consider Bangalore, a city of 6 million in southern India. It has been the country's Silicon Valley since firms such as Texas Instruments Inc. and Motorola put electronics plants there in the late 1980s.
There's no vacancy this month at the Leela Palace, a 254-room, five-star luxury hotel that was completed 2½ years ago. There are no rooms anywhere in town. Hundreds of buses ferry thousands of young technology workers to and from their jobs.
Mahatma Gandhi Road, with its neon signs and shopping malls, looks like a small but no less crowded version of New York's Times Square.
As you enter the Leela, a welcome sign announces job interviews for Siemens and Infineon Technologies AG, along with a reception for new Dell Inc. employees. Intel's Indian operation is across the street.
Despite the opulence, poverty is overwhelming and always nearby. On the other side of a wall enclosing the lush pool and gardens at the Leela lies a barren field where poor neighborhood children play cricket. Cows and goats sift through a smoldering pile of garbage, scavenging for food.
But the tech boom is fueling hopes that India's economic resurgence finally can begin to address the country's struggle with squalor. Other industries are showing vast improvement, too.
Tata Motors, the nation's largest carmaker, has begun exporting to the United Kingdom. Bajaj Auto, a maker of scooters and motorcycles, is staging a similar renaissance.
"If you believe in the free market as a way for the economy to become more productive," said Nilekani of Infosys, "then if India booms, it's good for everybody."
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February 19, 2004
By MICHAEL ONEAL, Chicago Tribune </b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->BOMBAY, India -- The increasing debate about white-collar U.S. jobs moving to India is alive and well - in India.
The growing election-year backlash against outsourcing drew standing-room-only crowds last week at an international conference put on by the country's leading technology trade association.
"When the Dilbert cartoon introduces an Indian character called Asok, you can see what the impact has been," said Arun Kumar, managing director of Hughes Software Systems, as he introduced a program on how Indian companies might respond.
"This is certainly something we should be concerned about," said Nandan Nilekani, chief executive of Infosys Technologies, one of the nation's largest outsourcing companies.
<b>Indians worry that a protectionist sentiment, fanned by election year rhetoric and sluggishness in the U.S. job market, will result in legislation restricting the kind of outsourcing work that has driven India's tech boom.</b>
U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., revealed plans for such legislation while he was in his home state on Tuesday.
State measures limiting the export of government jobs have drawn sharp attention. A recent move in the U.S. Senate to curb federal job outsourcing has caused more anxiety.
<b>Indian executives see the backlash as more than a little ironic. The rise of India's high-technology sector, they point out, is a direct result of the country's economic liberalization in 1991, a program launched with U.S. government support.</b>
In recent years, India's deep pool of low-wage, highly skilled, English-speaking "knowledge workers" has proved irresistible for U.S. companies looking to cut costs.
The Internet and other communication advances have made the shift possible. And as Indians take on more valuable work, such as product design and research, tech executives there are certain they can compete worldwide with the likes of IBM Corp. and Accenture.
Indian companies are reinventing the way programming is done, said Arvind Thakur, president of NIIT Technologies in Delhi, India.
By breaking what is widely considered a highly intuitive creative process into repeatable steps that can be done by less-skilled engineers, India is trying to create high-quality software factories, not unlike what the Japanese did with the assembly line.
India, Thakur said, has the opportunity to "assume the mantle of global leadership" in software services. U.S. executives routinely say they find the quality of work in India to be as good as or better than the work done at home. That's partly because even low-level employees who answer phones in call centers are likely to have college degrees.
The draw is strong enough that the number of companies putting their own operations in India has increased sharply, as positive results flow in from such pioneers as Motorola Inc., General Electric Co. and Intel Corp.
By next month, according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies in India, the nation's software and services sector will post total revenue of $15.57 billion, up from $5.54 billion in March 2000.
During the same period, the industry's employment has grown to 813,500 from 284,000.
The group estimates that exports of software and services - mostly to the United States - will rise to $12.20 billion in March from $3.96 billion in 2000, despite the sharp downturn in the U.S. economy. If growth trends hold, the association predicts that exports could reach $40 billion or more by 2009.
By itself, the industry represents only 3.8 percent of the country's gross domestic product. But the tech boom's effect on India's economy and psyche is much more profound. Consider Bangalore, a city of 6 million in southern India. It has been the country's Silicon Valley since firms such as Texas Instruments Inc. and Motorola put electronics plants there in the late 1980s.
There's no vacancy this month at the Leela Palace, a 254-room, five-star luxury hotel that was completed 2½ years ago. There are no rooms anywhere in town. Hundreds of buses ferry thousands of young technology workers to and from their jobs.
Mahatma Gandhi Road, with its neon signs and shopping malls, looks like a small but no less crowded version of New York's Times Square.
As you enter the Leela, a welcome sign announces job interviews for Siemens and Infineon Technologies AG, along with a reception for new Dell Inc. employees. Intel's Indian operation is across the street.
Despite the opulence, poverty is overwhelming and always nearby. On the other side of a wall enclosing the lush pool and gardens at the Leela lies a barren field where poor neighborhood children play cricket. Cows and goats sift through a smoldering pile of garbage, scavenging for food.
But the tech boom is fueling hopes that India's economic resurgence finally can begin to address the country's struggle with squalor. Other industries are showing vast improvement, too.
Tata Motors, the nation's largest carmaker, has begun exporting to the United Kingdom. Bajaj Auto, a maker of scooters and motorcycles, is staging a similar renaissance.
"If you believe in the free market as a way for the economy to become more productive," said Nilekani of Infosys, "then if India booms, it's good for everybody."
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