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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JPR who wrote (10820)	2/28/2000 3:51:00 PM
From: JPR	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12475

A Coolie becomes an Expert How did he do it? He earned it. A question of Semantics and an about-face--JPR until recently, it was not uncommon to call Indian soft-ware professionals as HIGH-TECH SOFT-WARE COOLIES. No More. With the success of soft-ware engineers, entrepreneurs, billion-dollar Silicon Boys, there is a name change. And it is EXPERTS. It was not easy. How did we do it? WE EARNED IT From 'software coolies,' Indians now seen as experts By Manik Mehta, India Abroad News Service Hanover, Feb. 28 -- For most Germans regularly fed a staple of negative cliches by their media, India has always been a land of abject poverty where legions of hungry children beg for alms. But Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's recent announcement that his government would allow recruitment of Indian and other foreign computer experts to meet a shortage of professionals in the domestic industry is making Germans look at Indians differently. The Germans who once called them "software coolies" -- meaning Indians merely carried the baggage of the West's computer industry -- are hailing the same Indians as experts now. An Indian recruiter based in Switzerland, who is here for the ongoing CeBIT 2000, touted as the world's largest computer trade show, said he saw a "dramatic change" in the attitude of Germans towards Indians. "In the past, they (Germans) would behave in a very arrogant manner whenever I approached them with offers to provide personnel from India -- they would look at my skin and just turn away from me. Now at CeBIT they not only listen but are even willing to come to my office in Switzerland to discuss recruitment prospects," the recruiter told India Abroad News Service on condition of anonymity. German industry has realized that it cannot do without recruiting foreigners, despite the high unemployment within Germany. It has been inspired by the success stories of U.S. computer companies which have relied heavily on Indian experts. Although German industry was fully aware of India's potential, only last year did it realize it could no longer ignore the tremendous business potential inherent in the country's huge reservoir of computer experts. The Y2K fever revealed the helplessness of the West in coping with the glitch on its own. At the same time India's software industry boomed as the world, particularly the U.S., struggled to weed out potential problems. The German industry closely watched Indian companies perform trouble-shooting tasks, upgrade the West's computer systems and ensure a smooth transition from 1999 to the new millennium. Although leading German companies such as Siemens and others have established software units in Bangalore, there is still a great demand in Germany for software expertise from India. The statement by Dewang Mehta, the president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), that Indian software exports would be worth some $50 billion within the next eight years has been noted in German industry circles. At CeBIT 2000, the "once exotic faces of Indians are now as common as those of Westerners," said Helmut Nagel, a German software provider with extensive contacts in India. There are no longer "Indians from India alone but also Indians from the U.S., the U.K., the U.A.E. (United Arab Emirates) and every remote corner of the world at CeBIT," Nagel told India Abroad News Service. CeBIT ends on March 1. There are 26 exhibitors from India at CeBIT 2000, including ADA Software & Services of Calcutta, Aptech of Mumbai, Cognizant Technology Solutions of Chennai, the government-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and the Department of Telecommunications and Godrej Telecom of Mumbai. But the prowess of Indian experts is truly mirrored in the presence of U.S.-based Indians at the show, working for many of the 481 American exhibitors. India's presence is now also being aggressively emulated by Pakistan (with eight exhibitors) and Bangladesh (10 exhibitors). Pakistan and Bangladesh are also interested in sending their experts to work in Germany, but the German response to their endeavors to penetrate the hi-tech domestic labor market has not been as enthusiastic. Schroeder's remarks, while positively received by the industry, have earned him the ire of trade unions. With Germany battling chronic unemployment of some 10 percent, trade unions were quick to denounce his plan. IG Metall, the world's largest union, sharply criticized the government move and called, instead, for re-training of unemployed Germans. indiaabroadonline.com