The flood gates have opened and they are coming back in droves now, they referring to Indian professionals working overseas. Over the past 18 months in Bangalore alone, over 30,000 techies have returned from high-paying and good-quality jobs overseas, and this is now being repeated in sector after sector. Indian professionals are beginning to make the trip back to the homeland and in most circles this is no longer frowned or looked down upon.
Even as short a time as two years ago, the trend was not so clear, and most people would have assumed that if someone were coming back to the country it must have been because he/she had lost his/her job overseas. Today, besides Indians, even foreigners are making a beeline for the country as a stint in India looks good on their résumé. How times have changed!!
Is this a good thing, one may ask. In my mind this trend of high-quality, professionally qualified, and well-placed professionals coming back is a very big and unqualified positive. In fact, I remember the great Barton Biggs mentioning very clearly that one clear sign of a country developing and transforming towards rapid growth is if large numbers of skilled citizens of that country start returning home of their own free choice.
It indicates that these global citizens see greater economic prospects and opportunities in their mother land than in the more advanced countries of the West. It only serves to reinforce the feeling shared by most locals that their country is now finally on the move.
This is also a pattern that we have seen before, in Taiwan, Korea, and now in China -- large numbers of professionals and engineers returned home to work in local companies or become entrepreneurs. In Taiwan this reverse brain drain effectively created its hardware components industry and was a critical factor behind its huge success and penetration (they are now world leaders in PC notebook manufacture and all PC components).
Such an infusion of foreign talent, most of whom will have worked in the best MNCs globally serves to raise the bar for the entire domestic corporate sector, and brings in best global practices, benchmarking and an international mindset.
It also brings with it a lot more international connectivity as the Indians coming back bring their global connections with them. This influx also ignites entrepreneurial activity as many of the professionals coming back do so in the hope of setting up their own companies and exploiting their global connections and contacts.
This influx of foreign-trained and experienced professionals is critical if a country wants to move up the value chain in terms of goods/services provided as they bring many of the soft skills needed to allow companies to become truly global in terms of scale and scope.
While critics may contend that given the Indian diaspora of almost 20 million NRIs and our population of a billion people, how will the return of 50,000 or even a 100,000 make any difference? Also even today they will contend that for every one person returning, maybe three or four are still leaving the country to pursue better economic prospects overseas.
While the above is true the quality and profile of the people returning today is significantly different from the past. Most of those returning today are doing so voluntarily, because they believe in the vision of a prosperous India and want to share in its economic transformation.
They are leaving high-paying mid-management jobs and this is true across sectors, not just technology. Also, this flow shows no signs of abating, judging at least from the number of résumés friends across organisations continue to receive from extremely well-qualified professionals based overseas.
The multiplier effect of the return of this 100,000-200,000 people (with global experience and connections) on the economy will be much greater than what a simple numerical extrapolation will show.
Why is this happening? There are two or three simple explanations.
First, these global Indian are now seeing the same opportunities that the locals have been harping on for years. There now seems to be global belief that India has hit an inflection point, and many cannot resist the chance to be on the ground as a country as large as India grows at 7 per cent per annum for a decade (hopefully) and transforms itself. The wealth-creation opportunities and satisfaction of seeing your own country develop in front of you cannot be underestimated.
The second point is that the opportunities in corporate India in certain sectors are now global in scope. Whether IT, pharma, auto components, engineering and telecom, Indian companies are now going global and one has the opportunity to be there when a generation of Indian MNCs gets created and drive and shape their way forward.
Your ability to make an impact is so much greater here than in the West.
In most sectors individuals coming back are no longer required to make any sacrifices on the professional front; in fact, the reason to come back is now very often the quality of the professional opportunity and not just family and social reasons.
The third reason is, I think, the current gold rush for Indian talent. Most of the world's top companies now finally need to have some type of India strategy, and for perhaps the first time India's skills and knowledge are at a premium. This is certainly true of the financial sector.
Most of the world's top private equity shops/hedge funds and endowments now feel the need to enter India or have Indian exposure, and they are keenly searching for individuals with experience about India. These are some of the best firms in the world and are able to attract the best talents to return as they normally insist on global experience.
Similar developments, though may not be with the same scale/speed, are happening in other sectors as well, as most of the world's top companies finally accept that they need to be in India, whether it be to source globally/manufacture or sell domestically.
For any individual with strong India skills, this HR demand/supply mismatch will not last permanently. Now is the time and place to get the maximum reward for your India knowledge. Such a gold rush and search for country-specific skills happen only once in a lifetime, if at all.
The moves you make over the next 12-18 months will be a huge opportunity to change your personal orbit in terms of the quality and type of organisation you work for and job responsibility.
