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American and European services firms have figured this outand are taking on the India-based firms head on in people management, even adapting global HR policies to suit Indian needs. Theyre succeeding.

Smugness and Infosys hardly go together. Yet, in the spring of 2004, Nandan Nilekani had famously proclaimed that the global playing field "had been leveled. The CEO of Infosys was conversing with visiting American journalist Thomas Friedman. The change, according to Nilekani, had been brought about by technology and globalization. For once, Nilekani seemed to let go of his natural modesty as he extolled the strategies adopted by his company. And also by his other Indian peers.

Friedman was impressed. So much so that he called his wife from his hotel room to tell her that the world was "flattening". His book, World is Flat, eulogized the tactics adopted by Nilekani, Ramadorai, Premji and others, proclaiming a new world order. It was meant to be a warning note to the developed nations, particularly, America.

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But even before Friedman loudly asserted it, companies like IBM, Accenture, EDS, CSC, and ACSthe North American services firmswere feeling the heat. Not only were these Indian firms taking their market share in IT services, many of them had listed in America and had soon become the darlings of Wall Street.

The Indians, of course, were beating them hands down in cost. A large part of that cost advantage came from Indias low-cost work force, which was equally good, if not better than the American IT workers.

It was time for them to tap that talent too. Between 2004-2007, almost all American firmsand a few European onessignificantly ramped up their Indian delivery. Today, for many of them, including the biggest of them allIBMhave more workforce in India than in any other part of the world, excluding of course, USA.

In short, the success in the American (or European) marketplace is increasingly depending on how successfully you compete in the Indian market for talent.

While many of them were hiring rapidly, the Indian firms maintained that just hiring by paying more would not make them successful in India. Satisfying the needs of Indian employeeswhich are very different from those in the US (say the need for job security)was not going to be easy.

Easy, it was not. But possible, it is.

This years DQ-IDC Best Employers Survey (BES) gives enough reasons to believe that the non-Indian firms are steadily mastering the art of managing Indian employees, because that has become the numero uno factor for success in the marketplace.

This years BES gives an interesting insight that seems to coincide with Friedmans flat world contention. For long, Indian services companies were making the most of tech democratization, going from strength to strength. But, somehow, non-Indian service firms have come to terms with the new order, and are bringing the battle to India. They have realized that the Indian workforce is the key to the future and have staked a claim.

When Indians started to pitch for American IT contracts, they were the challengers; the American firms were the incumbents. In the Indian talent market, the same phenomenon is repeating itself, with the order having been reversed. It is the Infosys and Wipros who are the incumbents; it is the IBMs and Capgeminis that are the challengers.

The survey results show that the world is indeed flatequally flat for all. Or, as they often say, globalization is a two way street. We have come a full circle.

Challenge to Indian Service
If Friedmans flat world was the new world order, call it the new, new world order. In BES07, four non-Indian services firms have made impressive debut. Now there are a total of five non-Indian services firm in the list. IBM, Capgemini, Cognizant, CSC, and Ness Techthese companies have either made a debut or have moved up in the ranking, while the Indian giants, but for TCS, have tumbled.

It is obvious that Indian services companies that had been using the global service delivery model had a lot of faith on their people management skills. While these companies were bidding and winning contracts abroad against global service companies, so were the non-Indian service companies. Not only have these global companies set up base in India, they have also studied and adopted themselves to the Indian climate. Thus IBM India is just like any other Indian IT biggie, only more attractive due to the international lineage. The implications are loud and clear. Non-Indian services firm have also learnt how to make best use of the not-so spiky world of ours.

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