As Syntel employees began moving into their spanking new Silicon Valley style, 40-acre campus in Pune, India, early last week, the firm joined a rather select list of U.S. companies, who have off-shored / outsourced almost their entire operations to India.
While, many large U.S. companies outsource back-office operations to India to cut costs, for Syntel it is about more than just saving money. Outsourcing its entire operations to India, Syntel demonstrates it is more than happy to put its money where its mouth is.
Its Pune building, complete with gyms, cafeteria, overnight accommodation, courtesy vans, and other American style amenities, is part corporate residence and part showpiece. Conjuring up a little bit of America in India, many thousands of miles away, Syntel has designed its Indian operations to make visiting U.S. clients feel comfortable about committing their computing operations to a company a world away.
This is not exactly a new trend in India, as more American business people make the trek to India in search of profit-making miracles; outsourcing companies have been transforming their headquarters into Indian replicas of Google or Microsoft.
While, these make the American businessmen feel at home, but as Jonathan James, Syntel s Vice President of Global Marketing and Investor Relations says: These U.S. style campuses are even becoming a necessity for attracting Indian employees. There is a war in India for good talent.
A Syntel Advantage
But, Syntel has gone one step further than most Indian outsourcing firms. It has outsourced almost all its operations to its own India-based outsourcing centre. Everything has been moved to India, except for its sales and legal operations, with only 500 of its 6,500 employees now located in the United States.
We have a fairly unique view of what it means for a U.S. company to outsource most of its critical functions to India, says Bharat Desai, Chief Executive of Syntel.
Founded in Troy, Michigan, back in 1980, Syntel was the brainchild of Desai and his wife, Neerja Sethi, when outsourcing was more about staffing than about transferring the management of whole corporate applications thousands of miles away.
Initially, Syntel hired only U.S. programmers, but later on Syntel began to take on Indian developers in the 1990s, so much so, the culture of the U.S. company felt entirely Indian, very soon.
I could see a cultural transformation in the company at our picnics, says Mr. Desai. As we transitioned into contemporary outsourcing, our company became more and more Indian.
Focus Change
As a staffing firm, the 1990s saw Syntel grow into a $10-million company, soon becoming part of a very competitive market. This led Syntel to focus more on the outsourcing market, which was just taking shape in the 1990s. At this point, Syntel began moving most of its operations to India.
And, then in 1998, going public the company managed to raise $30 million.
That helped our credibility, says Mr. Desai. We could look other public companies like American Express right in the eye and say, we tried outsourcing to India ourselves.
As a U.S. company subject to all the financial and reporting responsibilities of any U.S. public entity, Syntel the Indian outsourcing firm is able to attract higher-end responsibilities from customers such as AIG, FedEx, Wells Fargo, and J.P. Morgan.
Syntel and India have done a great job of attracting more and more complex projects to these new development centres like our Pune facility, says Mr. James. It s like a home away from home for U.S. businessmen.
There are more stories like Syntel s than are told, as the success rate of off-shored / outsourced operations to India makes the business circuit round. It is quite evident, India has more than proved it is not just about low-end outsourced tasks, but has the verve and panache to take on entire operations of lack lustre western firms, and turn them into dazzling, profit-raking centres, not just in IT, but in every conceivable field. After all, India s expertise and brilliance is the outcome of centuries of experience, from time immemorial when the world travelled to its shores in search of rich talent and profitable trade. Perhaps, the Americas may not have been discovered till much later, if Christopher Columbus had not set out to find a sea route to the fabled gold and exotic spices of India by sailing west.
As in the past, so too in the present, India continues to fulfil the dreams of many looking to become wealthy and make incredible fortunes!
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