SOME WESTERNERS MOVING TO INDIA TO WORK AT CALL CENTERS

by Siddharth Srivastava

(PNS) -- They have been labeled as "adventure workers" who have been joining the Indian work force from the U.S. and Europe. It has been sometime since India's outsourcing and information technology firms have been hiring foreigners at higher and middle levels for their expertise. However, workers from abroad are seeking lower-end jobs as well, such as answering phones at call centers, for a pittance of what they earn in their home countries.

Most who have been quoted by various media say that the idea behind taking up such jobs is to "chill out," "take a break," travel in the sub-continent while earning at the same time. But there are also more serious dynamics at play wherein a shortfall of language-proficient manpower is being plugged by personnel who might find themselves out of jobs in more advanced nations, due to cheaper options elsewhere. These foreign workers address the most common complaint by customers abroad that native English (or French, German, Spanish or Dutch) spoken by Indians has a very different flavor/accent that makes it difficult to understand. Then there are the requirements of cultural and geographical knowledge to be able to address specific queries.

Although there are no exact estimates of the number of foreigners answering phone calls in India, the National Association of Software & Services Companies, the industry trade association has estimated that there are over 30,000 expats working in Indian IT and offshoring companies, which is three times as many as in 2004. The number of foreign nationals working in India is estimated to be over 50,000, with over 12,000 registered at IT hub Bangalore.

Evalueserve, a Delhi-based company that provides consulting and research services to corporate clients worldwide, has estimated that the offshoring firms in India will need over 160,000 workers with refined foreign-language skills by 2010. However, the Indian education system will only throw up 40,000 or so graduates with the required proficiency. Evalueserve predicts that foreigners will make up the difference.

Among the firms that have hired foreigners for language proficiency include Evalueserve (40 foreigners among a total workforce of 900, with plans to add another 150 foreigners this year), Technovate (40 out of 70 workers in a travel-related process are Europeans, with plans to add another dozen) while GTL Ltd, based in Pune, has hired a London-based employment agency with elaborate plans.

These foreign workers are being seen as emblems of a reverse movement of human resource, as opposed to the more usual Indian brain drain to foreign shores. Typically, the salaries of foreign executives in India are much lower than their earnings abroad and at par with Indian employees, but most firms ensure that their stay here is comfortable by ensuring health insurance, free lodging, special leave structure that allows travel back home as well as providing an environment that is professional.

"It's a win-win situation," said Sreeram Iyer, chief executive of Scope International, a Chennai-based human resources and software development outsourcing operation of Standard Chartered Bank. "The workers don't only come for adventure. Many have trouble getting jobs back home," he said, in an interview with The Economic Times.

In a recent report Business Week has talked about the emergence of service providers that assist India's outsourcers to hire from overseas. They include Tim Bond, a 32-year-old consultant, who set up Launch Offshore, a London recruitment firm, last October that caters to Indian call centers. Tim has found jobs for 100 workers, and expects to place 200 more this year.

Headhunters India, a leading tech employment company, has been quoted as saying that it gets about 300 unsolicited foreign resumes every month, and has found jobs for about 100 expats in the past two years. At Team Lease Ltd. India's largest temp agency, resumes pour in from Africa, Japan, Poland, and Latin America.

Over time people been profiled by the media represent a diverse cross-section of the West: Norwegian Even Eng, Swiss Myriam Vock (call center Technovate), Japanese Miki Chiba, American Joshua Bornstein (Infosys), Polish Magdalena Gazewska (Siri Technologies), Brits Paul King and David Eddison (ITC Infotech), Swiss Patrick Schapper (travel consultant), Scotsman Kenny Rooney (GTL, Pune). Rooney has been quoted as saying: "India provided me a growth opportunity that wasn't there back home."

Surveys by Nasscom and Evalueserve in the past have also indicated that the passage of jobs between India and the U.S. and the U.K. is not a "one-way street." Recently, an industry report by consulting firm McKinsey and NASSCOM has forecast that India's business services and IT exports are expected to surge more than 25 percent a year to $60 billion by 2010. But there are going to be severe hurdles in the form of manpower shortages, rising salaries and infrastructure needs that may make Indian firms look at international locations to conduct operations as well as hire foreigners.

Indian IT companies have set up offices in the U.S. and also China, but they have been largely restricted to marketing, generating new clients as well as establishing a countrywide network that have created very few jobs and that, too, mostly for Indians. In the last couple of years, however, there have been several steps by several IT firms such as Infosys, Wipro and Satyam that have grown rapidly in scale to hire Western employees to deal with local populations abroad and the need to penetrate markets further.

Last month, Tata Consultancy Services, one of India's biggest IT firms, detailed plans to more than double its U.S. staff next year in an expansion that looks to cut into a key market for U.S. giants International Business Machines Corp and Accenture. TCS is boosting its U.S. payroll to 1,500 employees from 600 as it focuses on providing more advanced IT consulting services in the United States. According to a company statement there are plans to hire 13,500 professionals this fiscal year out of which 5,000 will be hired abroad. In 2004, Infosys Technologies invested $20 million to create nearly 500 consulting jobs in the U.S.

Observers say that overseas professionals feel comfortable working in Indian tech firms, as over the years these firms have imbibed global practices that are inherent in their operations now. As Indian companies continue to expand operations worldwide, they have adapted their management practices and strategies to compete in the global marketplace. Until recently, most Indian software companies employed Indians in key positions in global positions around the world. An onsite posting or assignment was a plum perk that the companies offered budding MBAs and other consultants wishing to move towards marketing or sales.

Indian companies have now begun to realize the significance of having local hands in local markets and have started recruiting sales and marketing people in local markets to represent them. This has not only created a familiarity among foreign workers about Indians and India, but also acted as a push to look for placements when the going is tough abroad.