In early November, an international delegation composed of some of leading thinkers and practitioners of global talent management converged on India.
The group included a handful of top executives from Fortune 500 companies, senior consultants from leading HR-services firms and representatives from global Tier One universities in North America, India and Africa. For our delegates from the west, the trip provided an opportunity to better understand a country — from a unique human capital perspective — as it undergoes one of the most profound transformations in its history.
The group participated in a series of summits and roundtables from city to city in a program designed to build bridges between cultures, facilitate new relationships and partnerships and exchange innovative best practices in global sourcing and talent management.
We started in New Delhi at the National HRD conference on the Future of Work and Mastering Change. There were almost a 1,000 representatives from Indian companies to discuss the themes of change management and innovation in human capital management. Keynotes included Michigan’s Prof. Noel Tichy and author Charles Handy. On day two, the group was joined by senior Indian executives, including representatives from Hewitt, Hexaware, TMI India, Wipro, Satyam and the Boston Consulting Group in an invitation-only summit on the emerging arena of Virtual Global Talent Management. Dr. Santrup Misra, Head of Corporate HR and IT for the Aditya Birla Group opened the conference. Don Lowman, MD, Global HR Practice, Towers Perrin, closed the day by sharing recent data and insights into global employee engagement. Through the day, more than 20 experts gave their views, including a press conference moderated by P.K. Roy, President, Business Magazines Group, CyberMedia, a leading specialty media house in India, which provided vigorous debate around the threats and opportunities of global sourcing and the evolution of the Indian workforce.
We went on to staying at the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad, wherein we had discussions with the faculty and area business leaders about the school’s development of the talent necessary to drive India’s future. We visited one of the most successul captive operations — Microsoft, to hear about its approaches to innovation, productivity and workforce management in India.
From Hyderabad, the delegation traveled to Mumbai where that evening, we visited the EDS BPO call center to observe its operations and meet with staff. The next morning we assembled at MphasiS for a discussion with Founder and CEO, Jerry Rao. In a revealing dialogue, Mr. Rao shared the MphasiS story, the reasons for its merger with EDS and his personal views on India’s future. The tour concluded at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai with a symposium by one of India’s leading management institutes.
The tour made one thing clear: We are well past the provincial and protective mindsets that created a backlash against global workforce integration, including offshore sourcing, at the start of this decade. Our western delegates eagerly learnt about the preferences of Indian students, and what makes them choose one organization over another. Our Indian hosts shared their experiences and ideas on recruitment and retention. Today, the focus in India and the West is squarely on skills and talent shortages.
This was the first in a series of Global Talent Delegations to the world’s most important emerging economies. In 2007, DNL Global and HCI will host another group of senior executives in a visit to another talent hotspot.
