Everyone's Waking Up To The Importance Of India To IBM

The NY Times has an article today highlighting India's importance to IBM, saying IBM now employs 43,000 people there, or about 13% of its total workforce. BusinessWeek recently ran its own take on this move. InformationWeek posted this storyline in March, when we also put it on the cover of our magazine.March is when IBM announced it would make India the base for creating software systems that its consulting teams sell. The writer, Paul McDougall, recognized the move as the clearest example yet of what we knew to be true: India-based tech teams were taking on the highest-level, strategic business IT work, not the rote jobs many still like to believe. McDougall identified in that piece the astounding employment growth IBM planned for India.

We were struck at the time how little tip-toeing around the issue IBM did, compared with the past. IBM is still cagey about how this push will affect jobs in the U.S. and elsewhere. But there was a new level of candor about just how important India is to IBM, and just how ambitious its hiring goals are. That also shows up in these two other recent articles. The reality has become that if you're an IT services company not doing big business in and out of India, it looks like a liability. These companies can't afford not to talk about it.