WASHINGTON: More and more Fortune 500 companies are expanding their operations in India or farming out work -- outsourcing, in business parlance -- to the world's most populous democracy, says the Honolulu Inquirer, a daily published from Hawaii. For them, India has a large English speaking, college educated and tech savvy work force, the report says. They are hiring workers by the hundreds, building posh offices and signing new business contracts. "You are increasing the competitiveness of U.S. companies globally. You are lowering the cost to consumers substantially," Michael Clark, executive director of the U.S.-India Business Council, was quoted as saying. "You are improving in many cases the quality of service to consumers because you have a highly motivated workforce that has become sort of the world standard." Those cashing in on doing business in India include reputed computer companies such as Microsoft and Dell; telecommunications companies including IBM Corp.; credit-card companies as American Express; and conglomerates including General Electric, which makes everything from light bulbs to plastics. A total of 3.3 million U.S. jobs and over $136 billion in wages will be sent overseas in the next 15 years, John McCarthy of Forrester Research, a respected business analysis firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in November. McCarthy said two-thirds of those jobs and money are bound for India, where the federal and state governments and private high-tech groups have joined hands to market themselves aggressively. This trend worries unions and other critics, who say U.S. companies should be mindful of what this country of 285 million people needs -- jobs -- and not be fixated just on their bottom lines. The U.S. has 8.6 million jobless people currently. Companies save hundreds of millions of dollars by paying Indian workers less money than U.S. workers, analysts say. They are quick to add that the Indians aren't working for slave wages. In fact, those working for or contracting with U.S. firms make much more money than the rest of the country's work force -- one big reason is Indian unions haven't objected to the growing American presence, the report said. Indians increasingly are processing payments, answering customer calls, handling accounting tasks, developing software, and even managing payrolls for their U.S. clients. Many U.S. companies have set up sleek new offices in Bangalore in southern India, considered India's Silicon Valley. A more recent trend is U.S. biotech companies doing cutting-edge research in areas such as genetics and conducting clinical trials there, said Sudhakar Shenoy, a native of India who owns a Northern Virginia high-tech consulting company called Information Management Consultants. If the U.S. government prevents companies from doing more business in India or any other foreign country, the U.S. economy would suffer, Shenoy warned.
Source: IANS