Sramana Mitra has some interesting ideas for US companies looking to set up India development centres:
Here is pseudocode for an algorithm on how to address the India Relocation Strategy for companies:
* Do an ethnic population mapping of your Indian workforce. How many are Gujratis, Marathis, Tamils, Kannadas, Bengalis, … ? What city are they from? Where are their respective families and roots?
* Do an ethnic map, also, of your India-born management rung that would consider moving back to India, are capable of, and interested in building, running and scaling an off-shore Operation.
* Given that Bangalore is going fast down the path of becoming an infrastructure chokepoint, you will need other satellite offices. This means, you will need multiple General Manager (GM) types who can run significant operations in multiple Indian cities.
* Try to find five GMs, each from a different city in India, and a core group of twenty somewhat experienced people with leadership qualities that would like to move back, to go with each GM.
* There is your Team-of-TwentyOne per Operation.
* The rest can be locally hired, or filled out from more junior people in the company.In your Team-of-Twenty-One you have already designed in management scalability to sustain a 200-300 people operation from the get-go. Youve set the culture, the tone, the pace.
I believe, companies that are building 1000 people operations in one Indian city are making a mistake. They would be able to draw much higher degree of loyalty and emotional bond from their employees if employees are provided the opportunity to speak their own language, eat their own food, be close to their loved ones (India still has extended family structures), and raise their children in a familiar cultural environment that they themselves grew up in.
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