IT Biggies after Foreign Grads

Mumbai: Indian IT companies are attracting talent from German, Swiss and Austrian universities to work in India as paid interns. Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant and Mindtree are among the nine companies that have taken the lead by joining hands with the Frankfurt-based Vibe Internships to create 50 paid internship positions in Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore, said Dr Karl Kurbel, Project Supervisor of Vibe Internships and Head of the Business Informatics Chair at the European University Viadrina (EUV) to Business Line.


The interns will be paid between 150 euro and 600 euro (approximately Rs. 10,000-Rs. 40,000) a month for three- to six-month projects for business development, test automation, software development. Unlike U.S., European countries have been a bit reserved when it comes to sending people to India due to cultural issues and linguistic barriers.

Indian IT firms are evaluating this initiative in the context of their market development and brand building strategy for Germany. "As part of our brand building initiatives in Germany, we will get these interns to work out of our centers here as a result of which they will gain considerable exposure to the global delivery model. Our endeavor is to hire the best of these interns for client facing operations in Germany," said Nandita Gurjar, Senior Vice-President and Global HR Head, Infosys Technologies.

As of 2008, the market for IT services in Germany was 33 billion euro. While the case for offshore services is slowly registering in the minds of German managers, only a very few really believe it is a strategic imperative.

This program could help clear misgiving about offshoring causing job losses, as the participating offshore firms will create a significant number of new employment opportunities for top talent in Germany, said Peter Schumacher, President and CEO of Value Leadership Group, a strategic management consultancy firm, which advised Prof Kurbel and Vibe Internships for the initiative.

Puneet Jetli, Head, People Function, at the Bangalore-based Mindtree Consulting, said the company was still working out the stipend details for the initiative. "We will try to structure the stipend in such a way that the interns can help recover the costs as well as see a bit of India," he said.

Cognizant, Hexaware and L&T Infotech have also agreed to participate in this internship program.