Kris Gopalakrishnan, the head of India’s giant software company Infosys, explains the rise of an economic phenomenon about to engulf the world: outsourcers are outsourcing themselves.
Once known for sucking jobs out of call centres and IT departments in the west, Indian technology firms are re-exporting them to wealthier nations as wage inflation and skills shortages at home reverse the process.
Infosys spent $250m this year buying the Polish call centres of Philips, the electronics group, manned by workers who speak half-a-dozen European languages. The company is building up a network of offices stretching from Mexico to eastern Europe to China to provide an “anytime, anywhere” solution to its clients.
Infosys is not alone. Wipro, another hi-tech titan, has been on a spending spree, buying up companies in America, Finland, Portugal and Europe for hundreds of millions of dollars. Azim Premji, Wipro’s chairman, raised eyebrows on Wall Street when he talked this year of setting up divisions in Idaho, Virginia and Georgia – US states he said were attractive because they were “less developed”.
Not that he meant anything critical by “less developed”. Probably referring to local politics and ethics. And education.
No offense but tech support with someone with a thick accent and a little book of what to say is a nightmare in itself.
Maybe, just maybe, he meant there weren’t as many plastic surgeons inserting bags of silicon.
That’s funny.. An imbecile from a 3rd world country like India is calling Virginia and Idaho “less developed”. Someone should beat him down.
Uh, #3 – a billionaire “imbecile” from a 3rd world country.
#1 couldn’t agree any more
They’re kicking our asses from here to Sunday. They [Indians] all have Engineering degrees and can speak English. Maybe not as well as most of us but they get the job done for Corporate.
This situation we’re in makes me uncomfortable but he may be right. I mean, it would be interesting to see how the Internet Bubble burst and the recent loses of jobs to India and other countries has affected the future talent here in the US. Has the number of Computer Science college degrees gone down? Have our college students decided to go for a different career away from MIS in fear of not finding a job when they graduate? If so then this may be Azim Premji’s reasoning. I’m sure that the college students in India are motivated to seek BS degrees in the Computer field because they know they stand a really good chance of landing a really good job for them. Mind you, I think any job paying more than $10.00/hour over there is like a dream to them. Meanwhile the same job here needs to pay a college grad above $40.00 – $45.00/hour for that kid to be able to survive, let alone pay back his student loans.
So, are Idaho, Virginia, and Georgia underdeveloped? In the Computer Industry? Perhaps yes. But that doesn’t mean that people from those states aren’t experts in other professional fields. Those states may have the highest number of college drop outs that can answer the phone really well.
They [Indians] all have Engineering degrees and can speak English.
Well… not exactly. I’m not disputing your point that India has a lot of well-educated and motivated workers, but it ain’t all of ’em, by any stretch of the imagination.
It’s just that out of a population of 1,000,000,000, even 0.1% (the cream of the cream; smart and educated) is a HELL of a lot of people.
For every desi engineer aspiring for that H1B, there are 1,000 stick-eating imbeciles living in a gutter in Calcutta.
@ Ubiquitous Talking Head:
Good point. I didn’t mean all Indians were Engineers. Wrong choice of words. But you all get my point.
Maybe he meant high income levels weren’t “developed” in those states.
Funny story: I have an adjunct instructor who was born/raised in India. He came to this country, earned an education in engineering, and took a job with Chrysler…. for a few weeks at least. His position was outsourced to India.
You should hear what HE has to say about outsourcing!
No.3 that’s what he means by less developed ain’t as polite out here in “the woods”when someone insults us.An educated man from South Africa insulted me once and about 3 beats after the insult I shot back with a “F#%@ U Limey.Well this did not go over well with my Boss.The limey in question got a real kick out of it and we are still doing business.Some folks from other cultures understand us better than we understand ourselves Indians know there is a market for western call centers and they will just add the increase in cost to the price smart successful businessperson can work and develop a business anywhere the local gov. will let them.
It’s not just tech support now. Practically any big service company you call you’ll get some foreign idiot who can barely, just barely, speak english. I really hate that their doing this. It was bad enough talking to some dumb-ass American who didn’t know shit and now it’s worse. You have to talk to some dumb-ass person whom you can’t understand.
I guess the dollar to rupee exchange rate is also helping things a bit. How long before even NYC starts to look “less developed” than India?
#6 – apeguero,
They speak English in India just as well as we do, just very very differently. That’s not a quality issue. That’s a dialect issue.
#3 – That’s funny.. An imbecile from a 3rd world country like India is calling Virginia and Idaho “less developed”. Someone should beat him down.
What’s funnier is a guy from Texas calling India a third world country.
LOVe the Idaho reference.
The idea that India, is getting a GOOD amount of money to do something that COULD have been done in the USA…
that is so FUNNY.
does this point ALOT of fingers, at the STUPID corps.
It used to be, that IF’ a corp needed a NEW section to accommodate NEW features, they MADE one.
THEN they went to BUYING this NEW ability FROM other firms…That had HIGH paid CEO, and upper end employees, WHICH cost to much.
And they ended up farming it to OTHER nations, that are NOW, farming it BACK to employees in the NATION they started…
ANd the reason??
CEO and upper end in OTHER nations get LESS money.
Phone service is cheaper IF’ you dont leave the country.
Higher wage employees in THEIR NATION.
HIGHER taxes in THEIR nation.
LESS training in the USA for the unemployed geeks…
LESS interpretation/language problems. Less returned calls, and LESS waiting time as you can TALL what they are saying.
AND VIOP services int he USA arent as good as those in 8-10 OTHER countries.
After all, only thing India is proving is that she knows how to do business.. Getting work from US on name of cheap labor and getting it done in US itself..
cant agree more with #14. This is like the turtle-rabbit story where India is proving herself as a turtle and US is still sleeping..
and who care for American English dialect when one billion Indians will start controlling business with desi English..
Being from Canada I often find it easer to understand someone with an Indian accent easer than someone with a Georgian accent.
#17
Must be the lack of teeth that makes them talk that way.
#14, OFTLO/TP, What’s funnier is a guy from Texas calling India a third world country.
OK, India is a third world country. Starvation surrounded by cattle they won’t eat due to religious beliefs. Funny enough?
I’ve worked along side several India trained “Engineers”. Other than one electrical genius, none of them would have surpassed the technician level in North America. That isn’t to say there aren’t a whole lot of excellent mechanical engineers from India, I just haven’t run into any.
Maybe they do speak English in India. Apparently they also speak English in Jamaica and I can’t understand them either. OK, I understand words like ganga and doobie.
Get used to hearing more about India as India is one the road to be the new China.
Just got back from India and it is true that India is certainly 3rd world in many respects it is 1st world in others. The contrast is striking! Chinese companies are moving to India and Indian companies are moving to China, EU and the US.
Cheers
Oh, come on…
“less developed” = we can pay them less than we would pay workers in major metropolitan areas of the US. They would only have to pay just a little more than Walmart does…
What doesn’t make sense about opening a call-center in rural Virginia, that can take calls from DC, etc???
What doesn’t make sense about a call-center in rural Georgia that can take calls from Atlanta, most of Florida, etc??
Idaho to handle calls from Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Boise??
I checked the Wiki entry for Idaho:
“Since the late 1970s, Boise has emerged as a center for semiconductor manufacturing. Boise is the home of Micron Technology Inc., the only U.S. manufacturer of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. Hewlett-Packard has operated a large plant in Boise, in southwestern Idaho, since the 1970s, which is devoted primarily to Laserjet printers production.[12]. Dell, Inc. operates a major customer support call center in Twin Falls. AMI Semiconductor, whose worldwide headquarter locates in Pocatello, …”
They aren’t up there for the scenery, or the fresh air. They’re there because it is cheap to operate there.
6. So, are Idaho, Virginia, and Georgia underdeveloped? In the Computer Industry? Perhaps yes
What he meant was that it is easier to find qualified IT people in these states as job avenues for them are much more limited than say Silicon Valley.
#18 – It’s not the lack of the teeth. It’s all the transplants.
And for Azim Premji, saying Georgia is less developed, F You. Take your millions of dollars and hang yourself. And take your company with you.
#11 – hhopper,
Ironically, some of them are such dumb-asses that they spell “they’re” as “their”.
#19 – India is an emerging nation and is not a third world country.
Third world countries do not have nuclear weapons.
23, I ment that the COST of living, CAN be cheaper…
Average pay per hour is LESS then $10..
It was apparent to all that Software development is a complicated process. It involves not just technical skills but a general understanding of the business’ priorities and ability to balance the tradeoffs that continuously occur in development around spend, scope, quality and schedule when those business priorities shift. In order to get all those advantages of outsourcing, it is very important to make sure that the contractor has practiced quality management process, incessant process improvement and the appropriate number of qualified staff to perform the customer’s project.
UFIDA Software Engineering
Anyone with a sense of humor about tech support and outsourcing might get a kick out the video here: http://www.bondwoley.com .
I am an Idahoan. I once called a call center in New York and got transferred to a friendly Asian who answered and said, “European Desk.”
Just for the record #4, you are not god! But he may qualify as a genuine imbecile who could actually learn something if you opened a book.
The first concept of the television was a sketch done by a 14-year-old farm boy named Philo T. Farnsworth in 1922. On September 7, 1927, he created a television system that could not only display, but transmit signals between separate rooms. He was from Idaho.
Idaho as more millionaires per capita than any State in the US. We don’t just grow potatoes here.
So I guess you are not the only imbecile who thinks that Idaho who can’t handle tech support. We are on of the best kept secrets. We think that imbeciles like you can stay out.