Trump ‘template’ to Make America Great Again — punitive and protective tariffs, restrictive migrant policies and strong-arm tactics to oust ‘suspect’ immigrants —may well end up achieving exactly the opposite of what the US president desired to.
His apparent strong desire to hit out against what he calls illegal immigrants in his country and ‘unfair trade practices of countries like India’ ironically may unleash newer opportunities for India.
If things get tougher for people of Indian origin to visit for work, the situation is developing that work may flow out to India — already many American corporations have their Global Capability Centres in India, and more are expected to locate their operations in India.
At present India has half the world’s GCCs at 1800 and this number is expected to nearly triple in the next five years, with most states competing with one another to set up similar facilities in their respective regions with a view to garner global business and generate high value employment.
Ms Nancy Bhatt, Managing Director, Protiviti Member Firm for India , a global consultancy firm told News24 that in the next five years, India will be hosting some 5,000 GCCs with the whose who of global corporations setting up shops in India, due to its distinct advantages of skills availability and language skills given the army of highly educated, science and engineering graduates and technical manpower with his relatively superior English language skills.
“Yes for the moment, America continues to be the number one participant in the Indian GCC growth story with several American companies setting up their large GCCs in India. The uncertainty induced by President Trump and his protectionist policies that appeal to his mass base in the US may motivate more American companies to follow suit to get their work done abroad – like in India, but “there are other countries that are showing a lot of interest in building GCCs in India to serve as their back offices and main processing offices, Ms Bhatt whose company works with global corporations and state governments and the government of India on the GCC, partnering in the GCC growth story.
Borderless Global leadership roles
“Visa restrictions are redefining the GCC story and represent a turning point for India’s economy. Growth is also companies outside the US from Japan, Europe, UK, given the scale at which India can operate, India’s cost-to-skill advantage, and ability to offer quality outcomes. These will l lead to more GCCs setting up centers in the country, projecting an increase from 1,800 to 5,000 GCCs within five to six years,” Bhatt said.
Within India, states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are attracting significant growth in GCCs due their favourable fiscal policies and proactive incentives like concessions in land allotments, Capex and Opex reimbursements for development in both tier 1 and tier 2 cities like Coimbatore and Mysore, for example.
Bengaluru continues to be the hub of GCCs, and it may be recalled that Karnataka was the first state to come out with a comprehensive GCC policy, that promised the moon to the big global corporations to make the Garden City their home of significant operations.
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka’s and Maharashtra have successfully attracted GCCs by creating an ecosystem that includes top-tier colleges, subsidies, and efficient single-window clearance processes for setting up centers. It is not for nothing that companies like Amex, Genpact, GE Capital, and Citibank were among the first to set up their GCCs in India.
While the general perception is that India is developing into a “back office” of sorts for companies, there is a quiet change that is taking place with leadership roles flowing to these GCCs.
“With the rise of GCCs in India, global roles have become borderless, and professionals in India can now lead and contribute to projects end-to-end without needing to migrate. Till now, approximately 5,000 decision-making global roles have moved to India in the last four to five years,” said the top honcho of the consultancy firm that works with and for global corporations – sourcing human resources and helping with logistics for setting up GCCs across India.
India is no longer seen only as the “back office” when GCCs were largely seen as, when they started coming in, she said.
Today, people sitting in London and some of the other regions would be reporting to say, a particular gentleman or lady sitting in a GCC in India, because GCC’s were not seen that way before.
Need to pull up socks
Even though India will be home to many more GCCs in the years to come, there is competition coming up from countries like Poland, Vietnam and few others, but the advantage of India is the talent pool of science and technology professionals skilled in the international language of English, she said.
But yes, there is a strong need for skilling in other languages like Japanese, German and French given that many companies from there too are looking at India to establish their own centres.
Companies like Protiviti and others that work to facilitate GCCs are now devising language programmes to be able to cater to the new demand that is coming from different countries, Bhatt said.
Other than strengthening our advantage of the English speaking educated and skilled youth, there is an urgent need to make our youth “GCC-ready”, which would entail skilling them up and knowledgeable enough to be absorbed by the new service-oriented centres to cater to the growing demand.
She leads a team of market researchers who have identified talent crunch as the biggest challenge facing the corporations, and the government, as it has been found that only 43 percent of the current graduates rolling out of Indian educational institutions were “GCC-Ready”. What this means is that the government must come out with targeted initiatives for skilling and re-skilling programmes that are crucial to prepare graduates for evolving job requirements in a world rapidly changing with Artificial Intelligence and new technologies.
Well, there is a downside to the technological advancements, the pace of which is punishing, as anyone who is not prepared and up-skilled would be thrown by the wayside. The layoffs galore, especially in the IT sector is a case in point.
AI, a help not hinderance
Advent of AI must not be seen only as a problem but as an opportunity that will increase efficiency of the workforce and it should be seen more as a tool that will help and not hinder the human efforts. But for this, there need to be changes and adjustments made in terms of new knowledge and skills needed to “make the machines work”. All those who become proficient in this aspect would be safe in their jobs and progress, Bhatt said. “AI will automate traditional jobs, but it will not eliminate the need for human intervention, particularly for validation and analysis,” Bhatt said. Her colleague, Sayan Chatterjee, piped in with a suggestion that new technology areas like data engineering, AI/ML, Cloud Computing are the areas that are going to be the focus areas that should be kept in mind by the new job seekers. And also those working to skill themselves in these arenas to stay relevant in the job market, Bhatt said.
Companies like Protiviti are working with educational institutions and state governments to suggest changes in academic curricula to incorporate niche areas like cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), data analytics, and tools such as Python, PowerBI, and SQL to better prepare graduates for GCC roles. The importance of industry-specific knowledge, technical skills, business understanding, and effective communication, including problem-solving, were, are and will be the critical attributes one must possess and develop, for success, she said.
Protiviti offers a “campus to corporate” program to train fresh graduates for six months, making them corporate-ready for both the company’s clients and also for own firm. According to Ms Bhatt, data engineering, cybersecurity, cloud computing, fintech, and emerging technologies like AI/ML and blockchain would be the lucrative areas for jobs.
