ISB ACADEMY

Reverse brain-drain - West no more a greener pasture?


For the past few years, Indians returning back has been constantly on rise. Around 60,000 professionals settled in U.S. have returned to India in last year alone. This is almost equal to the number of Indians going to U.S. every year. Constant feeling of getting back to the roots and the decreasing gap in salaries in India and U.S. are some of the major reasons attributed to this trend of reverse brain drain. Statistics report that India is facing nearly 30 percent shortage of IT professionals, providing a lot of opportunities for the Indians to
head back.



"Take the IITians for example. If you see 10 years back, 90 percent of the IIT grads left India to grab opportunities in West, but now, almost 85 percent of the IIT passouts prefer to stay back in India," says Jayaram Valliyur, who has returned from U.S. and is currently, working for Amazon India. Valliyur has over twelve years of experience in building large scale distributed systems in the areas of retail banking and marketing automation, and currently working as the Director of Amazon India. He says, "It was my entrepreneurial spirit that brought me back to India. The kind of work we do is similar in both the places, opportunities, money, technology are here in India too. In fact, the growth is much faster. You get opportunities to work with different talent and a chance to interchange with people who are going back and forth."

The extensive experience, technological solutions, quality assurance and commitment to the work have made Indian professionals to create a brand name for themselves. With organizations from west look at India for talent and MNCs trying to open shop here, opportunities are galore for Indian professionals to grow.

Vidya Shastri, Software Development Manager at Amazon, says, "There are two reasons for coming back to India. One is the professional growth and opportunity in an expanding Amazon India and the other is personal reason to be closer to our parents and extended families, and to have my daughter be exposed to these relationships. Professional growth has been steady in India. Personally, it's been a great success moving back to India."

Most of the Indians returning are couples in the age group of 27 to 35 having kids. The major factor cited by most was to protect their kids from the Western culture. Education was also another reason for Indians to move back. There is a common believe that Indian education system is quite good.

"The ultimate reason for my shift is to allow my kids to grow up with my parents. You cannot find a major difference in the work culture. Business is the same and India gives more importance to multitasking whereas U.S. gives importance to projects. There is lot of appreciation for Indian talents. I worked for 9 years in U.S. and after coming back to India I can see a lot of changes in ethics and work culture, from remote centers to developmental centers and rise in leadership talents to managerial developments," says Madan. Director - HR, Amazon

"The U.S. work culture is more 'individualistic', whereas the Indian work culture is 'team oriented'. There is more maturity and experience in the U.S, but more enthusiasm and energy in India. I like the Indian work culture better overall," concludes Vidya.

With the economy bouncing back and growing at a faster pace, rupee becoming stronger, times have changed in India. Today, it is a place conducive to Startups and Entrepreneurship and Indian professionals around the world are waiting for an opportunity to make the most of it.