Global BPOs poaching Desi cos staff

[jayanthi mandhalapu]

Global outsourcing vendors such as Accenture and Capgemini are increasingly poaching employees from Indian rivals as they tap into professionals with expertise in offshoring to compete more effectively against companies like TCS, Wipro and Infosys.

As offshore outsourcing goes mainstream, multinationals are hiring Indians to head their sales teams in key markets in Europe and the US, a shift from the practice of employing locals to win contracts.

"This is happening for several roles spanning from sales, sales support to delivery. There is in a sense, even positive discrimination towards Indians now," an Indian executive who joined a multinational in Germany recently said on condition on anonymity.

Offshore outsourcing, or remote delivery of software application development, maintenance and support from countries like India, helps customers such as GE and Citibank save up to 40% in costs. Indian companies such as TCS, Wipro and Infosys started using offshore outsourcing to their advantage around a decade ago by wooing customers with significant cost-benefits.

In recent months, about a dozen or so top professionals have left an Indian company to join multinational competitors.Padmanabhan Ananthanarayanan, who headed India's largest software exporter TCS' sales organisation in Europe until February this year, joined Accenture in March as director of its outsourcing business based in Germany.

Shishir Kumar and Vikas Baranwal quit TCS earlier this year to join Accenture as sales directors, Nimit Chawal and Dev Sharma joined Capgemini to lead the company's sales team. Sharma headed Wipro's business development and account management for manufacturing and automotive customers in Germany until December last year, before becoming director, business development for Central Europe at Capgemini.

Sridhar Vedala, managing director of offshoring advisory firm Quantum Step, says global service providers are hiring more Indian professionals to influence the perception of customers who are looking at India and Indian professionals as synonyms for offshore outsourcing.

"Now when offshoring is in demand, obviously customers prefer Indian providers. In order to influence the perception, global providers are hiring Indian managers," he observed.