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According to Evalueserve’s report, the IT industry will cater to nearly 50 per cent of this demand, and the BPO and KPO segments are expected to account for the remaining.

This however, does not imply bad news for India. Demand for language-sensitive work will have a positive impact on the Indian economy, since it is expected to create a ripple, or multiplier effect on job creation for English-speaking Indian professionals. For every one job created for foreign language professionals, two new jobs will be created for Indian English-speaking professionals. Therefore, additional 3,20,000 jobs for English-speaking Indian professionals will be created by 2010, to fulfill the demand for language-sensitive work.

Professionals, especially from Continental Europe, are relocating to India to work with offshore IT and BPO companies. Evalueserve itself currently has 32-35 foreign language professionals, six of whom are Indians.

Not only that, Evalueserve plans to increase this number by another 30 or so. Mohit Srivastava, Assistant VP of Business Research and IRLC (International Research and Linguistics Center) at Evalueserve says, “It’s naturally very difficult to get a French speaking MBA with technical skills in India. Logically, companies will recruit from a French University. Same is the case with any other language.” “In the future, we foresee a lot of action in this area. Our ability to hire native speaking professionals will be very high. We have tied up with universities and job portals so that we get people with good skills,” he adds.

In case of Evalueserve, analytical and business skills are very important, but where contact centers are concerned, a much larger pool of talent is available.

The biggest driver for this migration is the experience of working in one of the fastest growing economies in the world. This experience significantly enhances their resumes and gives them a competitive edge for future employment in their home markets. Also, according to Tim Bond, the competition being lesser in India at this point, their chances of getting promoted here are higher than say, in the UK.

BPO vendors require specialized knowledge and skill sets to provide high level of customization. Tecnovate, a travel focused BPO offshores its recruitment and training to its clients, for employing native Europeans on Indian salaries. As a BPO service partner, Tecnovate serves clients in nine languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Finnish, Norwegian, Swiss, Dutch, Swedish) across 12 countries (in Europe and the US). According to Tecnovate, the influx of 100 Europeans at their office in Delhi has reduced attrition well below industry average as the multicultural environment makes the workplace so much more invigorating.

Says Tecnovate Head, Rajesh Magow, “We outsource recruitment of expatriates to our clients. This means better fitment of staff and minimum staff costs as far as the client is concerned. This helps in imparting tremendous scalability to their recruitment process, which is critical to the clients’ long term BPO plans. Moreover, the large contingent of locally recruited Europeans imparts great learning opportunities to the foreign language Indian staff in the company as well. This unique BPO fusion is bringing people and business together profitably. Clearly, the demand for foreign language professionals is on the rise.” Currently, Tecnovate has 60 foreign language professionals with them. About 30 per cent of them are Indians. Given the rising demand, Tecnovate BPO expanded when Cendant Corporation, one of the world’s leading providers of travel and residential real estate services, recently acquired it. With approximately 85,000 employees, New York City-based Cendant provides these services to business and consumers in over 100 countries. This new trend implies tremendous opportunities for India, but only time will tell if they can be fully leveraged.