Hire local talent to allay outsourcing fears: NRN

“We have to make sure we are not very visible in those markets,” he said when asked about a possible solution over IT outsourcing concerns faced by Indian companies.
He said it is natural that there would be some “discomfort by any government” if a large percentage of its workforce was not from the country itself. “The solution for us is to make the front end local, then no one will raise any objection,” he said. “The moral of the story is to make sure we are not very visible in those markets,” he said. “Hire local talent. Hire Englishmen in England, hire Americans in the US and Brazilian in Brazil,” he said.

Further, Murthy asked young IT professionals to opt for career growth within India which offers larger growth opportunities than anywhere else in the world. “Somehow our youngsters have all assumed the idea of joining this (IT) industry is to go to US, get there, get an H1B, convert it into green card and settle down there. I think it is a wrong solution, a wrong strategy,” Murthy said.

Murthy said one expects youngsters to earn good salaries in India, for which they have to get good quality jobs here. “But their objective cannot be to go and settle down in some other country, especially the US.”

On wooing back Indian talent, Murthy said there was no need to increase their salaries by 50 times to ensure this. But their lives could be made easier by providing schools, making sure that power condition and commuting is reasonably all right.

When asked about his investment firm Catamaran’s investment in SKS Microfinance, which is in the thick of controversies, Murthy said that it was legally not possible to exit from SKS at this juncture. In a statement from his office, Murthy said that Catamaran’s Rs 28.1 crore investment for 1.3 per cent stake in SKS was locked in for two years and involvement was prompted by the belief that transparent micro finance business would help the poor. Murthy said he wanted SKS management to be more transparent in corporate governance.