India, China brainstorm to transform outsourcing talent

With increasing globalisation forcing companies to be in the talent race, off-shoring exercise and accessing new pools of highly-skilled workforce have become imperative for any global company. To deliberate and exchange ideas on bolstering the talent pool and understand strategies to transform the outsourcing talent in India and China, a conference was jointly organised recently by city-based Global Talent Track (GTT), China Council for International Investment Promotion (CCIIP) and Pune Management Association, on GTT campus in Pune.
A team of delegates from India and China, comprising senior representatives from leading IT and outsourcing companies, was invited to speak on the topic ‘Successful models in talent transformation: India and China’.
Apart from delegates, the conference also saw participation of Ganesh Natarajan (vice chairman, Zensar Technologies), Mritunjay Singh (vice-president and head, Infosys, Pune Development Centre), Joseph Fernandes (head HR GLT, HSBC), Prashant Pansare (MD & CEO Inteliment Technologies), Santosh Panicker (chief people’s officer, Sears Holdings India), Pardeep Pahal (head talent management, CapGemini), Atul Padalkar (dean faculty of technology, University of Pune) and others.
Stressing on the importance of collaboration between the two fastest growing economies of the world, CEO of GTT, Uma Ganesh indicated that though the growth story and business complexities have steered companies to realise the essence of talent management, “To gain a competitive edge, there is a need for an ingenious set of collective talent, which is technically sound and operationally equipped,” she said.
At present, GTT is working with the industry and academia in India and China. On the hurdles that China is facing, Qiaoyu Jia from Ministry of Commerce, People’s Republic of China (PRC) said, “There is a boom in the Chinese outsourcing market and a distinctive shift from low to high-end businesses, which has been possible due to the government’s preferential policies for supporting outsourcing. Chinese face hurdles in the global market due to their unfamiliarity with English language, so a large number of students opt for training prior to taking up a job.”
On the rapid expansion of China in the last decade, Xi Zhang, executive deputy secretary general, CCIIP, said, “To propel China as a prime destination for outsourcing market, we followed three types of training models. First was of training schools owned by companies, second was ensuring companies collaborate with local schools and thirdly, setting up professional training institutes in the country.”
On Infosys opening campus in China, Mritunjay Singh said, “Structural shifts are reshaping the demand and supply of talent all across the globe. The model of transferring people where services are required will not work anymore due to the changes in government policies in many countries. A change in policy was imperative for Infosys, which is when we decided to open up a campus in China. Currently, 90% of our staff is Chinese.”
Ganesh Natarajan said, “The Indian IT industry is maturing but the Chinese IT industry is on the rise. So, it is important for companies to have a strategy for a sustained development. India started as a low-cost destination for the US and UK-based companies but now the promise of quality is driving the Indian IT industry.”
The speakers at the conference further discussed how companies are becoming more sophisticated in assessing and integrating a variety of factors when selecting an offshore location such as availability of qualified labour, access to technology clusters or academic institutions, robustness of infrastructure and hospitality of local business environment.