After back office, India roping in global functional jobs

Wide availability of talent and cost advantage has helped India emerge as a 'skill hub' not only for back-office jobs but also global functional roles, says an international recruitment firm.

According to GlobalHunt, an executive search firm, in the last two-three years, there was a 25- 35 per cent rise in global functional roles that came to India.

"India's advantage is that a large number of skilled professionals are available at very competitive cost. Their skills are global in nature and they are best in technology and analytics," GlobalHunt director Sunil Goel said.

About 20 per cent of companies have given India as 'region status' and India is no longer a part of Asia-Pacific for them. "Besides, 15-20 per cent of global workforces are reporting to Indian counterparts at various functions and hierarchy levels," it said.

So, decision making abilities are moving to India based roles, the firm said. "Having large captive centres in India has helped large global organisations in maintaining their competitiveness with the cost advantage that they get from India centres," Goel said.

A large percentage of  global companies have their business centres in India, though that varies in size of operations, it said. Moreover, most of the companies are focusing on Indian market and want to know what their competitors are doing.

Goel said, "Many big organisations have almost one third of total global strength based out of India. So, it makes lot of sense for them to put global functional roles in India."

This trend is growing gradually. It is bound to grow as global professionals' interests are increasing and getting more inclined to India based work.

Though recession has given an endorsement to India's economy stability and advantage but situation (overseas) was not alarming from India's economy perspective, GlobalHunt said.