Now China has taken manufacturing jobs, and India is taking IT jobs.
Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
21–30 of 47 posts
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#22I bet even in the home nation, there are more Indian staff than native ones.
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#23Wow, another 'China' is going to steal more jobs. lol
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#24Companies like IBM are "American" only in the sense that (1) legally they are domiciled in a US state such as, say, Delaware; (2) physically they are headquartered in or near a major US airport; and (3) their shares are listed in a US stock exchange. In most other ways, these companies transcend national boundaries. For example, many of them book a substantial portion of revenues through complex networks of "offshore…
IBM and Accenture are American in that that's where they were founded. This matters a lot: company culture is very different to change, and with the exception of departments that came forth of an acquisition, you can find elements of the founder's culture in most large multinationals.
Of course there are exceptions, as there always are, but I guess that from an employee's perspective, IBM looks and feels like an American company very much. Same holds for how sales teams interact with customers.
I would be interested in a comparison between experiences of Indian employees of Oracle and SAP, for instance. I have no clue, but I bet that it's tangible.
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#25How this is a big surprise? If the man you're looking for is one in a million, we've probably got a thousand of them for you to pick from. But I think there needs to be a defense made about cheap indian labour & why it works for american firms (more than the french or germans). I'm sitting in Bangalore right now and I can see why this happened. We all speak English, we grew up watching Simpsons and can quote Friends…
> Most of us spoke English as a first language (at least as good as one), nearly all of us bilingual (and not in the same languages) who were used to our English being misunderstood. I have to disagree I find that a lot of people from India do not pronounce the syllables in the way that a native speaker does.
> in the way that a native speaker does
You are aware that native speakers can have (sometimes wildly) varying accents, right?
There are inarguably millions upon millions L1 English speakers in India. The fact that the English they speak isn't identical to the one you speak doesn't really change that fact.
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most of us spoke English as a first language (at least as good as one), nearly all of us bilingual (and not in the same languages) who were used to our English being misunderstood. I have to disagree I find that a lot of people from India do not pronounce the syllables in the way that a native speaker does.
No kidding, and even if they speak English as a "first language", the cultural upbringing often makes more get lost in translation than in communication with, say, Mexicans who have a much worse grasp of English but much more in common with US culture.
Well put. I have worked closely with latinos when I was working in restaurants and it was very easy to communicate back and forth even if one of us didnt speak the same language. They never sounded like they were talking out of a 1920s dictionary, words no one uses in normal conversations.
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#27How this is a big surprise? If the man you're looking for is one in a million, we've probably got a thousand of them for you to pick from. But I think there needs to be a defense made about cheap indian labour & why it works for american firms (more than the french or germans). I'm sitting in Bangalore right now and I can see why this happened. We all speak English, we grew up watching Simpsons and can quote Friends…
> Most of us spoke English as a first language (at least as good as one), nearly all of us bilingual (and not in the same languages) who were used to our English being misunderstood. I have to disagree I find that a lot of people from India do not pronounce the syllables in the way that a native speaker does.
> I have to disagree I find that a lot of people from India do not pronounce the syllables in the way that a native speaker does.
But they can be understood. And they do speak well, apart from the funny (to us) accent. I personally find it more palatable than southern American accents, and more understandable than Caribbean accents (and I'm married to a Caribbean woman!), but that's just me...
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#28What is the # of "good" developers in India? What is the # of "bad" developers in India? What is the # of "good" developers in the US? What is the # of "bad" developers in the US? This is a lot more of an interesting question.
In terms of sheer numbers India may very well be ahead in both categories...
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most of us spoke English as a first language (at least as good as one), nearly all of us bilingual (and not in the same languages) who were used to our English being misunderstood. I have to disagree I find that a lot of people from India do not pronounce the syllables in the way that a native speaker does.
> in the way that a native speaker does You are aware that native speakers can have (sometimes wildly) varying accents, right? There are inarguably millions upon millions L1 English speakers in India. The fact that the English they speak isn't identical to the one you speak doesn't really change that fact.
Well I dont have trouble communicating with the majority of people in the US no matter where they are from or even the UK and Europe. But I do have a problem understanding the Indians that I am talking to 10+ hours a week.
I am not trying to bash people from India here its just that I have more trouble communicating with so called "English as first language too" speakers than other groups.
Re: Top global IT firms have more staff in India than home nations
#30At the risk of being downvoted, my general experience with India teams is not that good. At a minimum not better than other countries workers, and in my last year experience, actually worst than non-india teams. And they don't seem to be that much cheaper. How good is it that they charge, lets say, 5 dollars an hour vs 10 dollars, if it takes them 3 times the amount of hours to do the same work? Maybe it is because each India worker is assigned to more projects than they can handle, maybe because they don't have the experience, I really don't know. Finally, their English skills are very much lacking, so that adds more time and errors to the workflow.