FIVE THINGS LATIN AMERICA COULD LEARN FROM INDIA -- LAS LECCIONES DE LA INDIA
THIS IS MY LATEST REPORT FROM INDIA
NEW DELHI -- During my two-week visit to India, I asked several top officials the same question. Why is India growing at twice the rate of Latin America and lifting a larger percentage of its people out of poverty? The answers I got were amazingly candid, and on the mark. To find out the five main things Latin America could learn from India, read the full column here, and let us know what YOU think.
NEW DELHI -- During my two-week visit to India, I asked several top officials the same question. Why is India growing at twice the rate of Latin America and lifting a larger percentage of its people out of poverty? The answers I got were amazingly candid, and on the mark. To find out the five main things Latin America could learn from India, read the full column here, and let us know what YOU think.
posted by Andres Oppenheimer at 8:07 AM
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15 Comments:
from: Paul Thørsen
PThørsen240@aol.com
åndrês, other thing about Indians:
1)their educated class is fluent in English, the business language of the world.
Macho Hispanick pride will not allow English to be taught in Latin American schools, because they see it as the language of the hated historic rivals of the Spaniards. Same reason why the French won't learn English.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4379034
Sep 8th 2005
THE last thing you would expect India's call-centre bosses to be worrying about is a shortage of staff. The entire “business process outsourcing” (BPO) industry, including a wide range of services besides manning the telephone, employs an estimated 348,000 people (see chart). Nearly 3m English speakers graduate from university every year.
India still has a unique combination of manpower and English-language skills. But the full potential of BPO, beyond call-centres, has only been glimpsed—there are huge emerging markets in legal services, accounting, health care, personnel services, and so on.
The most developed Latinamerica countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico) have entered to the Outsourcing and Call Centers Business some years later than India. But they did it in a strong way and with a huge growth.
In Argentina, for example, a software industry promotion law was introduced just in 2004.
Despite the language, LatinAmerica has some adventages respect India. We are cheaper, just at few hours by plane, and we have the same time zone of the central USA.
See
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_05/b3969427.htm
But I agree we need more educational investment and sustein economical policies for a long time.
Regards,
Ruben P.
Rosario - Argentina
rubpen@gmail.com
Although Paul Thorsen usually says idiotic things, I agree that Latin American schools ought to emphasize more strongly learning one or more languages (principally English). Paul, I would say that the educated classes speak English, and speak English pretty well, I might add. I think the problem is that the middle class doesn't. The big thing is access to good education for EVERYONE, not just the elites.
Unfortunately it seems that the poster " Paul Thørsen " also did not benefit from English classes given his terrible spelling mistakes in English... (Hispanick??).
His silly point about Latins being too macho to learn English is also completely ridiculous - this man is obviously very uneducated and could not possibly have attended a university as such biased conclusions are more commonly found within the working classes who are less travelled and less schooled in the affairs of other nations, continents and cultures.
Finally with regards to the French people speaking English: the amount of French people fluent in the English language vastly outnumbers the amount of English people who are fluent in the French language. This in my personal opinion is due to the very deficient school systems in both the US/UK whose students consistently rank far below in all standard education tests when compared with French students and compared with students from other continental european countries. (More than 75% of American students for instance could not locate Iraq on a world map...; some 30% of Americans cannot locate their own country on a world map ! )
Finally a comment on "call centers" ; what a horrible industry- this is basically extremely low tech slave work; the pay is terrible and this kind of "service industry" contributes very little to the long term development of nations.
You are right, anonymous, calling the "call center" as a horrible industry.
Maybe Mr. Oppenheimer did not know a lot about the IT world.
The outsourcing & the call centers business are the lower level services in the IT industry. We can comparate them with the "raw material production" of the traditional industry.
In order to add value to the "raw material" outsourcing business, local companies, with a strong goverment support" must begin to develop Integrated Business Solutions.
In Argentina and Uruguay some small and medium companies have developed this kind of solutions with a great sucess.
Now a day, I can see an interesting goverment support to IT entreprenurs.
Both are small countries (40 millons of population) and will not have the impact of India in the global IT business. But the IT industry will be soon an important contribution to the GDP.
Regards,
Ruben P.
Rosario - Argentina
rubpen@gmail.com
The time difference in India is actually an advantage for American businesses. They can have people working virtually twenty-four hours a day (while the Americans are asleep, the Indians are plugging away).
Another advantage that I think should be explored more is that the Indians have far more immigrants to the United States who make a fortune here and return to India to invest in new businesses (possibly first generation Indian Americans). I have a hunch that a similar phenomenon does not occur with people in Latin America (or on a much smaller scale).
Finally, the sheer number of people in India who are educated and speak English make it an attractive place to invest. If Latin America could produce the same (regardless of its state of economic or political affairs), it would also see a significant jump in investment and growth. Like other posters have said, people could use accounting, legal, medical [think x-ray], and many more services from Latin Americans. Then again, the Indians still are awake while all of America sleeps.
Good recipe for businesses in Latin America, yet, I question how many businessmen and women would read this comlumn. And I mean business people or administrators with executive power. Mr Oppenhiemer is no businessman, neither are are those of us who have commented on his comlumn, from what I can see. In esscence we are a community of non-business people telling businessmen and women what to do with their business. No administrator or owner will listen to either Mr, Oppenheimer or any of us in this matter. I would very much like to see or read a comment from an owner or administrator who states that their business is doing much better becasuse they listened to the advice of any of us.
Sure, it's good to participate in these forums, and I like to read the main columns and the comments people make on them.
Regards,
Fili
from: Paul Thørsen
PThørsen240@aol.com
Hey anonymous, Latin Americans will NEVER ever allow any of the English language into their society, even if they know that 90% of their community will eventually try to sneak into and force themselves into USA society.
It's all because Hispanics are a tremendously proud people and they see the English language as the language of their hated historic rivals, the "Anglos". Hispanicks have put their foot down and have said loud and clear that they will no longer stand to be outdone by "Anglos" on the world stage. They have said loud and clear that the days of "Anglos" outdoing Spaniards are over and will not ever again be tolerated.
That's why they force themselves into the USA and refuse to accept English as our language. It's all about macho Hispanic pride. To use a word of English would make one a "sellout" in the proud Hispanick community.
paul, funny how the Argentines have such great admiration for the French and even try to mimick them in their culture!
i think you confuse poor central american immigrants with all of latin america.. yes, in particular, mexicans are very prideful of their culture (which may be the result of being a poor neighbor to a rich superpower)..
i think this more has to do with education.. most illegal immigrants have a 3d or 4th grade education.. if they could learn english in a year, they would.. b/c that would mean more $$$ and more opportunities.. but it's just not practical to expect them to with their level of education.. a lot of them can barely speak spanish..
if culture was such a big concern, they'd probably much rather stay at home..
I could write a long tirade about how out of touch with the REAL South America Mr. Andres Oppenheimer is... but I won't.
Why? Because I have already done it... over here (Spanish).
http://nerdgaucho.blogspot.com/2007/01/andres-oppenheimer-necesita-visitar-el.html
I grew up in Cuba and I studied English throughout high school. That Macho Hispanick pride statement is nothing but KKK thinking. It is true, Spaniards don't like the English. Maybe it's because Phillip II and Elizabeth I were cousins who hated each others' guts. It seems that Mr. HispanicK hates anyone who looks like, or speaks/write/understands Spanish, even if Franco was in cahoots with Nazi Principal, the Chief Nut, Adolf, the Nazi in Chief. Perhaps we're seeing new hints about making HispanicK (KKKKKs) disappear from the world the way "The Mustache" once tried to do.
Thanks for article!
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