The Rise of India
The cover story of the Dec. 8 issue of BusinessWeek magazine -- about the India's growth, its brainpower, and how corporate America is being reshaped. From the 90s, America saw the trend to outsource call centres and development jobs to cheap labour in India. Everyone have heard of the stories of people call help desks and not knowing that the person on the line engaging in small talk is actually have a world away, and has never seen North America. In the 70s and 80s, America saw its manufacturing jobs migrate to Asia (predominantly China), then in the 80s and 90s, it saw it's electronics engineering dominance wrested by Asia (Korea, Taiwan, etc.) -- but as it lost those jobs and underwent periods of pain that saw unemployment as workers were retrained, it emerged with a higher class of employees and jobs -- jobs that offered higher wages, greater benefits, etc. What now however, as India takes on the American service and research jobs? Two paths lie ahead: one that sees America fighting for the lost jobs and making the process painful for all involved; and another that sees the partnership between India and America evolving very successfully, where a huge and cheap talent pool can be tapped to deliver rapidly on innovation, and also growing a nice consumer market that wishes all the trappings of success. The latter is the inevitable path -- consider that the 1.8 million Indian expaexpatriatesrtriates in the US are the most successful group of immigrants to the US -- and now they have their sights set on tapping into the talent they know they've left at home. Consider as well that American businesses see the promise that India holds, and are not about to stop to get there. Lets hope that this story though won't carry as much misery as the manufacturing story, where we saw the evolution of behemoths like Wal-Mart that are sending us down a precipitous path where the final destination is does not appear economically bright. (See also the companion commentaries: Meeting the Asian Challenge, and, India is Raising its Sights at Last.)
The cover story of the Dec. 8 issue of BusinessWeek magazine -- about the India's growth, its brainpower, and how corporate America is being reshaped. From the 90s, America saw the trend to outsource call centres and development jobs to cheap labour in India. Everyone have heard of the stories of people call help desks and not knowing that the person on the line engaging in small talk is actually have a world away, and has never seen North America. In the 70s and 80s, America saw its manufacturing jobs migrate to Asia (predominantly China), then in the 80s and 90s, it saw it's electronics engineering dominance wrested by Asia (Korea, Taiwan, etc.) -- but as it lost those jobs and underwent periods of pain that saw unemployment as workers were retrained, it emerged with a higher class of employees and jobs -- jobs that offered higher wages, greater benefits, etc. What now however, as India takes on the American service and research jobs? Two paths lie ahead: one that sees America fighting for the lost jobs and making the process painful for all involved; and another that sees the partnership between India and America evolving very successfully, where a huge and cheap talent pool can be tapped to deliver rapidly on innovation, and also growing a nice consumer market that wishes all the trappings of success. The latter is the inevitable path -- consider that the 1.8 million Indian expaexpatriatesrtriates in the US are the most successful group of immigrants to the US -- and now they have their sights set on tapping into the talent they know they've left at home. Consider as well that American businesses see the promise that India holds, and are not about to stop to get there. Lets hope that this story though won't carry as much misery as the manufacturing story, where we saw the evolution of behemoths like Wal-Mart that are sending us down a precipitous path where the final destination is does not appear economically bright. (See also the companion commentaries: Meeting the Asian Challenge, and, India is Raising its Sights at Last.)
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