RETURN TO DESI ROOTS

Chiranjoy Sen
The Economic Times

A highly-specialised domain, CXO search has become big in India Inc. And MNCs are fast losing out to Indian companies as top-level executives are going desi.

CXO movements — and the difficulties associated with top-level hiring — are usually page one stuff at newspapers. Magazines too devote a lot of square centimetres to the latest hiring trends for CXOs and the pains associated with them. Here’s a look at the trend in India Inc.

The story today: An interesting trend is that top honchos of India Inc are looking at exciting assignments in domestic companies. Executive search firms in the country say top corporate leadership now finds MNC jobs ‘plain Jane’ and it is actually top slots in desi companies that are giving them the highs. K Sudarshan, managing partner of global talent search firm EMA Partners International, spotted the trend about a year ago. He explains that CXOs find jobs in Indian companies exciting because ‘they are closer to the centre of gravity from the control point of view’. This means that they can influence actions positively and see the benefits of those actions translate into better wealth-creation opportunities. Higher remuneration at Indian companies, especially in sunrise sectors like telecom, retail and infrastructure, is also a huge draw. With Indian companies getting listed at phenomenal market capitalisation—valuations topping Rs 10,000 crore in some cases—an MNC job seems colourless in comparison. The higher package is directly linked to the fact that MNCs are not growing as fast as some of the Indian companies in sectors like financial services, real estate, power and infrastructure, says a senior honcho of a global search firm.

“The total package in companies from these sectors would be more and Indian companies are not shying away from paying fat packages to get high-calibre people on board,” he points out. Added to all this are the emotional bonds that Indian companies offer, something that makes executives comfortable.

The south-side tale: Things are a little different, however, down South. Global technology product companies have not only set up their research bases in Bangalore and Hyderabad, but are now eyeing India as a major market. As a result, they are beefing up their field strength and hiring leaders who understand local markets.

These leaders either come from their own ranks—those who have worked with the companies for quite some time—or people who have worked with other technology majors in the domestic market. With local technology biggies focusing on IT services, there’s a challenge in working with product firms, mostly US-based. “Quality aspects as well as product-release deadlines are much sharper. Customer focus is deeper and the efforts made to penetrate a relatively virgin market throw up more challenges,” says a senior executive at the India office of a technology product firm.

Another twist in the tale is that some technology majors like Nortel Networks and Logica are setting up a large part of their global operations in India. These are usually headed by a senior of the rank of a senior vice-president and above. Often, these operations are independent business units and the functionality is closely aligned to that of a CEO of a small company. For example, Raj Mrithyunjappa became the Asia-Pacific business unit head of CRM major Talisma, based out of Bangalore, after spending quite a lot of time with the company’s North America operations.