Montivideo (Uruguay), April 21 (IANS) The skillset of Indian techies and the Latin American way of enjoying life is an ideal combination for a vibrant and productive work place and human resource environment, says the Indian envoy here.
"Indian outsourcing companies working 24/7 have developed a new business model of 12/12 here, splitting the work between the two time zones," says R. Viswanathan, also India's ambassador to Argentina and Paraguay.
"Latin Americans in our companies develop multicultural skills and are inspired by the new mindset and confidence of the Indian nerds. Indians are inspired by the Latino art of enjoying life and having fun and go back happier and younger after visits here," he said.
"This is contribution to human resource development of both our regions, preparing our youth for the knowledge society," he said at an outsourcing conference here.
There are some 25 Indian IT, software and outsourcing companies in Latin America, employing over 20,000 local people.
Tata Consultancy Services is the pioneer and has the largest presence in the region with global delivery centres in eight Latin American countries employing 7000 local staff.
Among the others, the most notable is Aegis (part of Essar Group) which has 5000 staff in Argentina. It is the largest Indian BPO in Latin America.
"Almost all the managers and country managers are Latin Americans," he said, adding: "A Uruguayan who developed the TCS business has risen to the level of executive vice president at headquarters in Mumbai."
Indian IT companies have developed a near-shore business model of 12/12 in which they service their North American clients for 12 hours from the same time zone operations in Latin America and the remaining 12 hours from India.
They leverage the multilingual skills of Latin Americans who speak Spanish, Portuguese and Italian to service European clients, and also to reach out to the 40 million strong Hispanic market of US.
Indian firms have invested about $12 billion in the region across various sectors including IT, pharmaceuticals, agro-chemicals, steel and mining.