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Adith Charlie

Mumbai, Nov. 23

Indian IT majors are making a beeline for Detroit, home to prominent American automobile brands like General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, to hire experienced engineers.

These engineers – a mix of foreigners and expatriate Indians – will help IT companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Infosys and KPIT Cummins strengthen their hold in specific areas of their engineering services outsourcing (ESO) practice.

The Big Three of the US auto industry – GM, Chrysler and Ford – have had a hard time during the economic slowdown and except for Ford, have gone in for dramatic restructuring. The net result is that many experienced engineers (who used to work in these auto majors) are now in the job market.

Sensing the opportunity, Indian IT companies are now on the prowl for domain specialists in areas such as powertrain domain, automotive infotainment, embedded electronic, engineering design systems, battery management systems etc, industry officials told Business Line.

“In powertrain domain and automotive infotainment, engineering capabilities are not readily available in India.

Most of the vehicle technology deployed in the Americas or Europe is not available with our locally-made cars,” said Mr Girish Wardadkar - President & Executive Director, KPIT Cummins.

“As our business plans for next year gets frozen we will decide how many people, with Detroit on their CVs, we would need to add,” he said.

Tata Consultancy Services intends to hire around 15-20 consultant level employees in 2010 in areas such as embedded electronics and engine systems management.

Says Mr Regu Ayyaswamy, Vice-President, Engineering and Industrial Services, “We are looking at bringing on board domain experts with over 10 years of experience. A lot of expatriate Indians who were in Detroit wish to come back home and we see it as a significant opportunity to engage with them.”

Companies such as Infosys are not only luring Detroit engineers for the auto business but also for its aerospace practice.

“Fundamentally, these are smart engineers who happen to be in an industry which is in a downturn,” said Mr Valmeeka Nathan, Vice-President and Global Head- Engineering, Infosys Technologies.

While Wipro Technologies too is keen to hire for its existing centre in Detroit, its Vice-President Dr T. S. K. Murthy has a word of caution for companies hiring senior professionals in large numbers.

“You have to be cautious when you get on board people with a high degree of acumen and mettle. If you keep them benched for more than two weeks, there is a very good chance of them getting de-motivated and discontinuing,” he said.

Hence, Wipro would hire purely on the basis of the purchase orders that it gets.

According to a recent Booz & Company report, the Indian ESO industry will achieve $50 billion in revenues by 2020 and generate employment for 25-30 million professionals.

More Stories on : Human Resources | Software

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