Sunday, July 08, 2007

Moving back to India

Over the weekend I attended the IIT conference in Santa Clara, CA. One of the panel discussions centered around the ever hot topic around whether it is a good time for Silicon Valley Indian professionals to move back to India and what are some considerations around this.
The distinguished panel of three speakers echoed in unison that the biggest deterrent to moving back was personal reasons as opposed to professional reasons. Often, family members are not on the same page with respect to the expectations and may not be prepared for the big change which makes the already difficult move tougher. Once this is sorted out, the panel felt that the opportunities for professionals were many, and the demand for mid-level IT managers with capability to manage P&L is very high. One of the panelists commented that if you have a home, then a salary of Rs. 40K/month is enough for a very comfortable living in Bangalore. Work culture wise, if you join a MNC or BPO, you would not feel any culture shock. The top concerns for employers is (1) attracting good talent, as I mentioned earlier there is a dearth of mid-level management (2) ability to retain talent, the young workforce has little to no loyalty and move around a lot seeking greener opportunities. Indian companies are striving to match disposable incomes between US and Indian salaries. All in all, the panel felt that professionally the opportunities are really good in India, so the decision to move or not is entirely personal.
Hope you found this useful, would love to hear your opinions on this.

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