It has been over 25 years since hi-tech R&D jobs started to move to India. However, technology marketing jobs have not moved and stayed mostly in the US. One of the principal reasons for that was that there was a very limited market for hi-tech products in India that time. The other reason was economic - it just did not make sense to move these jobs overseas at the time. In addition, communication channels were very limited, meaning marketers would have no effective way of communicating with their customers unless they were local. Lastly, technology marketing requires a different skillset that was not available in India then. Technology marketing involves businesses selling complex technology products such as semiconductors, EDA/enterprise software, and high performance computing, networking and storage systems to other businesses. As you can imagine, it's a little different than selling toothpaste, or even a TV to a consumer.
However, things are now changing. First off, Indian market for hi-tech is growing due to the huge growth in Telecom infrastructure, locally designed and manufactured electronic equipment (handsets/consumer electronics, etc.), R&D hubs of multi-national companies, and defence. This has required that most global hi-tech players such as Intel, Cisco, Nokia, Texas Instruments, HP, Symantec invest in sales and marketing staff to support the local customer. In addition, technical skillset of the local professionals is evolving. Most of the people marketing tech products in the US/EU or Japan have made the transition to marketing from engineering. This is the key difference between them and other marketers, who may have classical MBA degrees with no technical education. Technology marketers need to understand the technology they are selling in order to speak the customer's language. Engineers tend to trust people who have previous engineering experience. This skillset is now available in India.
However, the most important reasons why this shift will occur are economical and technological. Due the long running recession in the western markets, most companies have trimmed their marketing staff. The expectation, or perhaps hope, was that the marketers still left standing could be highly compensated and be more productive. While compensations have increased by almost 50% over the last decade, the productivity has not. See this link for an analysis. This is where the law of comparative advantages comes into play. Initially discussed by Adam Smith, it was further expounded by David Ricardo in 1817. In short, the theory is that "why make when you can buy cheaper", an idea proven many times over since the time it was proposed. Indian marketing professionals sitting in India can perform the technology marketing roles more effectively even if they are not more productive on a one to one basis. This is also the exact same reason why technology jobs started and are still being outsourced to India.
A favorite refrain from marketing management is that they need the marketers where the market is. True, but the market itself is moving. While the US remains the largest market for technology products, rest of the world is fast catching up and will overtake the US market in the next few years. Technical innovations have lowered the cost of technology so much that you can make a telephone call from India to anywhere in the world for almost no cost, thanks to the vast networks that connect the world's computers and phones. Calls made using the voice over IP technology are now as good as those made over traditional phone lines. Very soon, the technology will allow video conferencing to get close to the feel of a face to face meeting. Already, Cisco Systems is claiming that its Telepresence technology is as good as face to face meeting. Marketers in India can stay in close touch with the factory, sales offices and customers worldwide just as well as they had been doing from the US or other places. Some travel will be required, but a typical US based technology marketing person probably spends 50% of travel budget on overseas travel in addition to local travel. Plus, it is probably easier to travel to EU, Japan, China, Korea and other emerging markets from India than the US.
The location change is going to happen just in the same way that software jobs started getting outsourced to India. Indian schools and technical professionals would do well to get ready for this coming shift as it opens up new opportunities not seen here before.
Recent Comments