European IT pros move to India for work experience

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 20 March 2007, 17:30 IST
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Hanover, Germany: India enjoys an unparalleled reputation as an outsourcing destination for the tech sector but some European entrepreneurs are visualizing India as a bold and hungry market that is likely to assert itself in new ways and eclipse much of the West in the coming days. Employees at the German unit of Hexaware, an outsourcing giant are spending lot of time living in India, taking a pay cut as they draw an Indian salary and live in average Indian apartments to get a taste of real life in the country, reported a national daily. According to Gerrith Hermes, the CEO of Hexaware’s German unit “Our staff has to understand the culture and system in India. You can’t do that over the phone or a brief induction training course,” “You need three or four months living and working in India to begin to understand how people react there and why some approaches work better than others,” he said. Hexaware is an Indian company that employs approximately 150 people in Germany. Hermes says Hexaware’s practice of sending its German staff to India to watch and learn is less a quirk than a preview of rapidly changing dynamics in the 21st century economy. “I could well imagine that in the next few years German students won’t necessarily do internships at German companies but rather go to India,” he said.