Conrad Chua is Business Development Manager for Asia

A good friend of mine has a favourite story that he never fails to tell at dinner parties. In the early 1980s, he, like many other Indians, moved to Silicon Valley to work in a software company.

A new colleague asked him where he was from and he replied, quite naturally, “India”. The colleague looked slightly puzzled and said, “which software company is that? I see a lot of you from there these days.”

Setting aside the fact that my friend has a penchant for exaggeration, it is still a great story. And I am sure no one makes that sort of mistake anymore.

But in some respects, some parts of India resemble a large software company. TCS, Satyam, Wipro and Infosys have emerged from humble beginnings to create the global outsourcing market. Their corporate headquarters can be so large they are almost like small, self-contained townships that would not look out of place in suburban California. Through their growth, they have also created thousands of jobs for skilled Indians.

Outsourcing to India had its roots in strategies to tap on the cheap but skilled labour pool in India. However, companies soon developed their outsourcing capabilities across different sectors (from financial transactions to payroll processing to simple accounting). Many also deepened their capabilities, e.g. companies moved from simple medical transcription to interpretation of X-rays.

This movement up the value chain and across different sectors created a higher premium on skills. And this is the opportunity for people who want to work in India. India will require people with deeper skill sets and who want to work in some of the most innovative global companies in their fields.

There is already a small, but growing flow of Indians who are migrating back to India from the US and Europe. Some move because they want to raise their families in India. Many move because they are excited by the opportunity to contribute to an economy that still has many challenges, but is leap-frogging more advanced economies in many technical areas.

As an Asia Business Development Manager, I hope I can help increase that flow to the point where work experience in India will be a badge of honour worn proudly around the US and Europe.