Offshoring career was lucrative back then when there were more jobs for a far better pay than what the small Indian market could afford. Also, the mobility opportunities a global firm offers were virtually absent in the Indian market.
The number of executives heading global divisions who started their careers in offshore capability centres speaks for the vitality of the business model. When I started back in 2007, we did not expect the model to sustain beyond 5-6 years given the difficulty we faced in hiring talent at scale. However, the university system responded at tremendous pace in supplying world class MBAs and other graduates making GCCs a more permanent but also thriving feature of Indian economy.
Coming to titles, it is partly a cultural issue where we had the concept of lifetime and pensionable employment with PSUs until a generation ago. Longer tenure at each level suited the workforce expectations back then, but that’s changing fast. It is also partly because of the non-client facing nature of the job that offshore employees don’t need high sounding titles that even junior sales people in front end carry.
Indian market too grew tremendously throwing open many opportunities that didn’t exist a decade ago.
lakshmiprasadj 