

India's Leading Export: CEOs - pham
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2084441,00.html

======
teyc
I think the article draw a rather long bow.

The bottom line is these people speak English and are perceived to be able to
bridge the gap between the East and West.

~~~
wisty
It spends a lot of time talking about the Indian's ability to cut through red
tape, compared to the Chinese use of "connections", but only brings up
"English" twice, and not as the decisive factor. I think it really plays down
the importance of English skills.

I'd expect Brazilians to also do quite well, as they tend to have pretty good
English.

------
kaze
Since there are a billion plus Indians, the statistics say that you are bound
to get a few very smart people from among them.

~~~
sbhat7
Well, if you look at India's performance in the Olympics
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_at_the_Olympics>), thats not necessarily
true.

~~~
rluhar
I don't think it is quite the right comparison. I think most Indians who end
up being CEO (or senior executives) in companies have had some sort of post
graduate education abroad, or they have work experience starting in a multi
national corporation in India.

For excellence in sports, particularly at the olympic level, you need training
facilities, budgets and infrastructure in the country. You will find that
India is sorely looking in these!

I do not see what the ethnicity of these people has to do with their success.
I think more credit should be due to the organisations who hired and supported
them up the career ladder.

~~~
johnx123-up
Some Indians complain highhandedness of Sikhs and Malayalees. Is it true?
(Anyone from India, please?)

~~~
rluhar
No, not really true at all. The Sikhs and Malyalees are rather large
communities, with large diasporas as well. I think "highhandedness" is too
much of a generalisation (?) for such a large and diverse group of people!

------
johnx123-up
OT: From where these "fortune" companies take big projects? I have seen many
Indian freelancers bid as low as $50 for 1-week worth projects. (We have used
<http://www.cssilize.com/> that charges as low as $35)

~~~
patio11
They go to a few big outsourcing suppliers: Infosys, Tata, etc. These do work
roughly equivalent (in character, at any rate) to the consulting arms of large
American business process/tech companies, such as an IBM, Oracle, or what have
you.

Fortune 500 companies are not in the market for $50 a week labor from
individuals. (They may well be hiring it, somewhere down the food chain, but
it will be balled up with 800 similarly situated individuals for a $XX million
a year contract.)

~~~
johnx123-up
If you have fair amount of knowledge, can you please elaborate on this? What
makes these large American companies to pay in millions when they can hire
freelancers in few dollars? Any lobby involved?

~~~
patio11
Let's say I'm a major American bank and I want a complete payroll system done,
for internal use. This is going to cost me a couple million on the low side.

Why don't I do it with a $50 a week freelancer?

1) I don't trust him, at all. If he could implement payroll systems, why isn't
he charging millions of dollars? He's probably copy/pasting "Yes no problem
sir I will implement your system to the specified requirements" to 30 jobs a
day and looking for a sucker.

2) Who is going to manage him? Me? If I have to manage him, he doesn't cost
$50 a week, he costs ~$8,050 a week, because I'm the VP of a major bank unit.
Talking to poor people is always a bad use of my time, because it competes
with talking to rich people. (This is somewhat exaggerated but not false.)

3) Payroll systems are not a one-man job. After you get to team sizes of 20+,
it really helps to have a system for recruiting/managing/etc them, so that you
don't have to. I mean, at 20+, someone is statistically going to be getting
married or quitting or dying every year. Do I want to deal with that? No. Let
their boss deal with it.

4) If I pay an Indian freelancer $50 a week to make my payroll system, and the
payroll system fails to ship on-time, I will lose my job because _I did
something which was freaking insane_. There are things which, in American
business, are insane, and there are things which are Known To Be Not Insane.
Paying large, established technology consultancies millions of dollars is
Known To Be Not Insane. Even if the project fails, it is not your fault, it is
their fault. If the $50 a week Indian turns out to not be God's gift to
programming, hiring him was _definitely_ your fault.

It gets more complicated, but this hits some of the high notes.

~~~
statictype
I think point (2) is the most important of those.

When the Fortune 500 outsources to one of the bigger outsourcing firms like
those you mentioned, they're outsourcing the whole _process_ of developing
software from requirements gathering to testing and the final output is not
just working software, but a full trail of documentation for accountability.

You're not getting that from rent-a-coder.

------
pontiacred
As a turbaned Sikh, it's encouraging to see Ajay Banga as the CEO of
MasterCard. That being said I'd really like some elaboration on what they mean
when they say Indian CEOs show a level of business ethics not seen in the
west. It's based off a study done by Haygroup but they don't provide a link to
the study or how it was carried out.

EDIT: <http://www.haygroup.com/ww/Downloads/Details.aspx?ID=1187>

This links to a white paper that I think is the one referred to in the article
but you have to sign up to get it.

------
null_para
Wrong generalization. How many fortune 500 CEOs are from India? I can count on
my fingers (correct me if I'm wrong)

P.S. Part of my ethnicity is Indian..

~~~
kakashi_
How many of the top "Indian Companies" have foreigners as CEOs? I can count on
my fingers (correct me if I'm wrong).

P.S.: It depends on a big load of factors!

~~~
null_para
How many Indian companies are in fortune 500 list? I can count on my fingers
:)

~~~
hackerprime
Cool down.

------
lazy_nerd
India has also given people like Rajat Gupta (ex-Mckinsey Director) and others
involved in the insider trading case.

------
gopi
>> Indian CEOs show a level of business ethics not seen in the west

I doubt it...

------
digamber_kamat
Indians are self obsessed with such things. Time to move beyond this silly
rhetoric.

------
known
Indians among most corrupt while doing business abroad
[http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/24/indians-
among-...](http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/24/indians-among-most-
corrupt-while-doing-business-abroad.htm)

------
jayzee
_jugaad_ ~=hustle

~~~
balakk
i thought jugaad was a hack.. not a native hindi speaker though. It's a word
that has exactly the same +ve and -ve connotations of a hack.

