Bring up the subject of outsourcing and the knee jerk reaction is usually of the predictable ‘loss of jobs to India’ variety, and there is some validity to this of course. However, having just returned from a spending some time in Bangalore (or Bengaluru as it is now officially named, although not once did anyone refer to it as anything other than Bangalore it has to be said) attending the annual ‘celebration of the nerd’ that is the Osmosis TechFest, and taken the time to visit one of the fastest growing of Indian outsourcing businesses, MindTree Consulting, I thought I’d bring you a view from the other side...
Like all stories, there needs to be some interesting background to set the scene, and in India there is no shortage of it. 300 million people are illiterate, 190 million of them women. Of the 635,000 villages in India, 40% have no road to get in or out. Yet while China, often hailed as the new economic superpower, has a projected growth rate 10.2% for January 2007, India beats it at 10.5%. And a recent report that looked at the potential surplus working population for the year 2020, by taking the age of the population now and extrapolating the number of people who will be both leaving and entering the workforce, makes for truly thought provoking reading. In the UK the figure will be minus 2 million, in Japan minus 9 million, in China minus 10 million (courtesy of the restrictions on family size) and in the US minus 17 million. India, however, is a country mile or three ahead of the nearest competition (Pakistan on plus 19 million) with an incredible projected working surplus of 47 million people. India is, indeed, a nation of contrasts and a short drive through Bangalore highlights this: the bustling streets full of ever beeping traffic with high class hotels and shopping malls at one end, technology parks and universities at the other, and the abject poverty of slums and beggars in-between.