Here’s an interesting twist on the competition between India and China in the software outsourcing business.  NIIT (formerly the National Institute of Information Technology) will be establishing IT training centers and offering training in Wuxi.  The Business Standard’s story reports that:

“As part of the agreement, NIIT will work closely with the Wuxi provincial government to develop human capital for the emerging IT industry in the region.”

Since NIIT has both a training business and a delivery business, the skeptic in me can’t help but wonder if it is actually the case that they are getting paid by the Wuxi provincial government to train workers which can then be deployed on projects for the firm’s delivery arm - NIIT Technologies.  Given the current tight market for IT professionals in India, and the relatively greater appreciation of the rupee vs. the dollar, paying trained Chinese workers in RMB could be very attractive to an Indian company.  Of course, their biggest challenge will be overcoming the cultural issues that cause many Chinese engineers to avoid working for Indian companies.

The Business Standard goes on to say,

“A memorandum of understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed in the presence of Yang Weize, Communist Party general secretary of Wuxi region and G Raghavan, president (individual learning solutions), NIIT, at the Wuxi-Bangalore business seminar on service co-operation today.”

While my experience in China has clearly shown that an MOU carries about as much weight as telling someone, “I’ll give you a call sometime…” The article goes on to suggest that Wuxi is putting their money where their mouth is.

“The Wuxi government also announced the appointment of Raghavan as chief consultant for Wuxi city. Raghavan will work closely with the local government to help them identify and build the requisite IT infrastructure in the province.”

I probably shouldn’t comment on the wisdom of retaining the president of a company that will be providing services to you as a consultant, but it does demonstrate a level of commitment from Wuxi.

Wuxi seems to be aggressively courting Indian companies.  The Economic Times reported on some of Wuxi’s efforts.  According to the story:

‘MUMBAI: China has invited Indian IT and business process outsourcing companies to set up more units in its IT parks and build them up at par with those in cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Pune.

A delegation from Wuxi, an emerging economic zone in the Yangtze river delta, met representatives of software industries here and expressed a desire to convert their district into a “Bangalore of China”.

Yang Weize, secretary of Wuxi Municipal Communist Party of China Committee, said: “If China is the factory of the world, India has become the ‘office of the world’. This is what we want to do for ourselves. That is why we are here.” Weize pointed out that currently Wuxi has 50 Indian companies.’

So, if China is the “factory of the world,” and is setting a course to become the “office of the world,” what role will be left for India?  I’m just asking because the Indian companies seem awfully eager to help China build its IT/software outsourcing industry….

Technorati Tags:  China, India, Wuxi, China Outsourcing