1) Though India's economy is slowing due to the global downturn, it remains relatively strong and is expected to grow at 5.5% in 2009, which is healthy. 2) The consulting industry is still seeing great growth in India due to opportunities in industries that are just opening up and India's large, talented workforce. 3) While India faces challenges like infrastructure issues and retention of women employees, companies are finding ways to address these challenges and view India's long-term prospects positively.

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Geo Focus: India’s Still Rising 1 / 28 / 2009
Growth may be slowing, but the country’s economy remains a winner for consultancies
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By Jacqueline Durett
Subscribe Though experts call it a “global downturn,” the current economy
isn’t hitting India nearly as hard as it’s hitting other markets. India’s
economy was expected to grow at about 5.5 percent in 2009, less
RANKINGS than originally projected, but still quite healthy. India’s economy
» Best Firms to Work For 2009 had grown at or above 9 percent, second only to China among the
» The Best Places to Stay, 2009 major economies.
» Seven Small Jewels 2009: The
Hidden Gems of the Profession “In light of the global economic crisis, India is faring reasonably
well. While the stock market is down and car and home sales
» View all
have plummeted, most other sectors of the economy are strong,”
explains Gunjan Bagla, author of Doing Business in 21st Century India.
INTERVIEWS
» One on One with Accenture's “The slowdown is not as severe,” says G. Raghavan, country head, TCS India Business, of IT giant Tata
David McCurley
Consulting Services, which has more than 6,000 consultants in India. “Maybe it could if the trend continues for
» Consulting One on One with some time.”
Romil Bahl
» One on One with OMNI's Frank How has the country managed to stay strong? “India is a country of innovation. There’s a large amount of
Bernhard opportunity,” Raghavan says, adding that many industries are just starting to open up.
» Out of Office: Roz Savage
» View all Bagla agrees. “Only a fifth of India’s economy depends on exports. The country remains a very attractive market
for foreign entrants and participants in virtually any sector.”
CONSULTING MAGAZINE
UPCOMING EVENTS And that sector includes management consulting, of course. “Much of the leapfrogging in India has been
facilitated by good advice from consultants who have enabled Indian companies to [build] world class skills in
Financial Services Forum: manufacturing, marketing and IT services,” Bagla says.
Foresight Into Emerging
Consulting Demand - New York - “I think that you’ve seen great growth in India for us but also for many over the last few years,” says Alan Herrick,
March 25, 2010 president and CEO of IT consultancy Sapient, which was named the fourth best company to work for in India in
2007. “I think obviously you’re in a less than certain environment now, so I think that’s put some caution into the
Consulting Firm Leadership
market, but I still think you’ve got a rich, rich talent pool in India that I think is going to do well for the long run.”
Roundtable 2010 - Chicago - May
4, 2010
Sapient launched operations in India in 1999, with the idea that the company could tap into that talent pool. “We
Consulting Summit - Adapting to started to build it in 1999 and 2000 on that basis,” Herrick says. “And then obviously the markets changed and
Market Realities - May 5, 2010 your efficiency and costs became much more important. And as we edged into 2001, it became a much bigger
» View all idea for us than just acquiring additional talent, but actually becoming a central focus for the company.”
TCS also has had a lot of success in India. The firm is in growth mode, having just acquired Citigroup’s offshoring
business. But Raghavan says he sees a few key challenges to growth in India, including the fact that many Indian
companies are very IT savvy, but have a ways to go in learning how to market themselves. Also, he says, many
firms need to take a longterm view in terms of key employees, and think of them as partners rather than with the
company for a specific project. “I think that [concept] has already begun to grow,” he says, “but it needs to gain
momentum. It will bring more predictability to business performance.”
Infrastructure, while improving, continues to be an issue. “A lot changed
in India infrastructure wise to support [its] success,” Herrick says,
adding, however, that the firm must provide transportation to all its
4,000 employees every day. In addition, he says, wage inflation has
seen double-digit growth in recent years, though that has dropped off in
the current economy.
India’s culture has nuances foreigners may find unique—and a big
challenge to retention. “Now this is unheard of in the United States ...
there was such a limited supply of talent because there was such good
growth rates by the companies that [someone] would actually accept
three jobs and might go to one job in the morning and if he doesn’t like it, just take the second job by the
afternoon,” Though this trend also has been stymied by the economy, it’s a phenomenon that occurred until
recently, Herrick says.
The company also faces a retention issue with women, who often relocate once they marry. “We are
accommodating; we let people take some time off to make sure they have an adjustment period to the family and
then come back and work. We are culturally sensitive to that. Work from home—that’s a very popular theme in
India. It’s a win-win for us and in India as well,” says Karandeep Singh, a managing director at Sapient who is
based in India.
Political unrest is also something India is facing—attacks late in November in Mumbai confirmed that. “I think
obviously what happened in Mumbai and some of the things right after that was unfortunate, but seeing the
government’s response to it, the kind of focus it created on the heightened security at the airports [and] the hotels
[that now] I think business is as usual,” Singh says. “People are coming to offices. I think there is no overt concern
about security.”
http://www.consultingmag.com/article/ART234721?C=TR9C9PZVWUU3g73 3/26/2010

2. ConsultingMag.com Page 2 of 2
And the Mumbai attacks don’t seem to have derailed the India growth plans of U.S. companies. Less than a
month after the attacks, PricewaterhouseCoopers finalized a deal to acquire all shares of ECS Limited, a
Bangalore-based provider of operations and HR consulting services to Indian and global clients. The acquisition
will add five partners and more than 100 consultants, pushing the number of PwC employees in India to more
than 5,000. PwC has offices in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata,
Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune, and in 2007 was named the “India Tax Firm of the Year” by International Tax
Review magazine.
For their parts, both Raghavan of TCS and Sapient’s Herrick say they will continue with their growth plans as well.
TCS in early January announced the launch of its development center TCS Kalinga Park in Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
As for Sapient, Herrick says, “I think we’re positioned well for the long run, and I think we’re in good
shape.”
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