India has been uniquely positioned to leverage changes that have arisen due to globalisation. We are one of the largest producers of engineers, management graduates and technically qualified staff. With demand for better skills mounting to serve organisations effectively, the number of white collared jobs like lawyers, doctors, managers, engineers have soared, leading to social transformation, says Dhananjay Bansod
The last decade-and-a-half has witnessed globalisation like never before. Our workplaces are comparable with those in the developed world. The best class products are available simultaneously with the developed world. This is more or less true for several of us in the metros and Tier I cities.
A high quantum of the employment during the last three decades was in the grey-collared zone which includes farming, fishery, security guard, store clerk, waiter and labour. The donning of grey-collared uniform transformed people. At the cost of over generalising, this created a divide between the white-collared and the grey-collared people. The common perception was that whereas the white-collared people (lawyers, doctors, managers, engineers) rise to the top, the grey-collared ones stagnate. Examples of people who were able to make a transition were few. Most grey-collared people were under-graduates.
Meanwhile, India’s aspirations were mounting. People who understood the value of education were focused on educating their children to the highest levels with the sole intention of getting them white-collared jobs which would take them to the top. Resultantly, the education levels increased across the country.
Simultaneously, technology enabled transformation on another level. The optic fibre cable and the electronic switches suddenly shrunk the world. In India, in the early 90s, the waiting list for the landline was five to 10 years. This shrunk to one or two days. And, this opened a world of options for us. leased and dedicated telecommunications lines were made available. One could now interact and transact across the world at no cost. The possibility of working in virtual teams emerged.
The developed world realised the benefits of centralising and standardising several processes, the ability to leverage India’s people potential and the corresponding cost arbitrage. The change begun on a very cautious note, simple process managed by people over a call to help clients resolve simple queries. This was almost simultaneously followed with simple clerical transactions. The next level of experimentation came in with lower-end software maintenance and development and the level of work has been rising since then.
Technology has changed the expectations of society. The demand for better products and services is mounting. As competition intensifies, the speed to market has become one of the drivers of obtaining good market share. These changes have added another dimension. The possibility of leveraging talent at the place where it exists has become an opportunity.
India has been uniquely positioned to leverage these changes. We are one of the largest producers of engineers, management graduates and technically qualified staff. We have an even increasing growth of people who can speak English and communicate easily with the English speaking world.
With demand for better skills mounting to serve organisations effectively, the number of white collared jobs soared. Today, we observe that we host organisations engaged in several niche areas like software research, telecommunications research, medical engineering research, clinical research etc as we’ve the necessary talent to take on these jobs competently.
These centralised centers have given rise to a need for managing these organisations. As a result, we observe an emergence of specialists. At a point in time, manufacturing was the major contributor of the country’s GDP. As of last few years, the services sector commands the lion’s share.
These changes have enhanced the need to focus and develop the organisation’s core competence which in turn guides the organisation to source competence of non-core areas from the experts. The creation of such expert organisations has become a new business opportunity. One observes that due to availability of English speaking qualified people, several white collared jobs have been centralised in India.
While the initial movement was based purely on cost arbitrage, today it is more of capability arbitrage that dictates creation and growth of organisations. This growth of white collared jobs has implications on the social transformation. More and more people are moving out of smaller cities and towns towards cities.
Cost arbitrage has enabled higher remuneration to people which in turn is fuelling the buying power. With intent of catering to the demand for goods and services, several multinational organisations have set up their bases in our country, which in turn has fueled creation of more jobs.
Re-establishment in a new location necessitates adaption to the local culture. In addition, the growing income disparity between those who have benefited by this change and those who are only witnessing others’ affluence has enhanced social restlessness.
On a positive note, this migration is in midst of diluting the social barriers such as caste and language. The available lifestyle has also motivated several youngsters to take a job in various service sectors like retail. This development also presents a new opportunity for us.
Our existing credibility can support us for even more specialised opportunities if we update our educational systems from rote learning to conceptual and applications based educational systems.
One more imperative would be a review of the organisational structures and culture. In light of the global interdependencies and rapidly changing dynamics, appropriate changes need to be woven which can support the changed dynamics.
The writer is managing partner, IKYA Human Capital Solutions.