Why Indian Talent Thrives Abroad but Falters at Home

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Every year, many Indians step out of the country in search of better education and employment opportunities. According to BCG data, around 0.7–1 million Indians migrate annually for overseas jobs, making up a significant share of the global skilled workforce. Out of the 2.5 million Indians moving abroad each year (excluding tourists and short stays), about 30% are students and nearly 20% are dependents, leaving a core 1.3 million migrating for work opportunities.

The destinations reflect India’s global talent magnetism: Canada (130–140k), Gulf countries (100–110k), the US (90–95k), the UK (80–85k), and Australia (60–65k) collectively account for more than 70% of overseas employment migration. Parallelly, the number of Indian students studying abroad has surged to 1.8 million in 2025, up from 1.3 million in 2023, according to the Ministry of External Affairs.

This outward movement highlights both opportunity and contradiction: while Indian talent is globally prized, domestically it often struggles with perception, quality, self-belief, and trust issues.

Quality vs. Cost

One of the sharpest criticisms of India’s talent story lies in how it is priced. Speaking at an exclusive media roundtable, Dyuti Raj Anshu, Global Procurement Director, FMC Corporation, drew on international examples to highlight the gap between global recognition and local execution.

“You pitch for SAP, for example. You’ve got an office in London, another in Manchester. You go into a million-pound deal. In the room there are 20 people, 15 making a pitch. You’ll see two or three Indians there. But once the deal is signed, you’re left with only one or two non-Indians — and all the work is outsourced to Calcutta,” he said.

The reason companies go to India, Anshu argued, is not distrust but “bench strength.” If five people leave, ten more can be brought in. He further noted, “Because we are selling ourselves cheap, we don’t invest in quality. And people cannot really think beyond what they have been asked to do.”

This trade-off between cost and quality often shows up in product design and user experience. “If the user interface of a product is poor, I jokingly tell my daughter, ‘looks like a purely Indian design.’” But if we have something from, say, California, and it happens to be user friendly, we don’t get into the quality specifics then,” Anshu added.

He called for more investment in R&D and developing the ambition to “manage your own destiny.” With India already exporting $25 billion worth of software annually, the foundation exists. “Now is the time when you can shift the gears,” he emphasized.

Srividya Kannan, CEO & Founder of Avaali Solutions, agreed that the issue was not capability but underestimation of it. “I am sure we do not have paucity of talent. We just have to shift the perception to the fact that we have the capability to do it and we have to actually run those miles harder together,” she said. For her, the best of functional and technical talent already exists in India; it’s simply serving other organizations.

The Mindset Challenge

Beyond quality lies a deeper issue: mindset. Neeraj Agarwal, COO of Tata Projects, believes India’s working class is too comfortable being the implementer. “When I was working for the others, the thinking was happening outside. We were just the implementers—and that is the largest chunk of people we have in our country,” he said.

According to him, Indians excel at execution but hesitate to innovate. “We want instructions to come from somewhere. Our own people can actually be found saying that we should be governed or controlled by outsiders, not Indians. This is the mindset,” he explained. 

Though industries like automobiles are beginning to innovate and export, he says the pace of change is slow. Agarwal pitched for a culture of self-belief, supported by investment from Indian companies. “If they invest even 5% of their revenue in R&D and start developing products, things can change dramatically.” The service giants, he argued, already have the scale, knowledge, and systems; what’s missing is belief and commitment.

Why Global Wins over Local

Even when Indian firms demonstrate competence, another roadblock emerges: trust. As Pratima Ram, Independent Director on Corporate Boards, pointed out, the dominance of the global Big Four in accounting and consulting is a telling example. “Combining their accounting income and the consulting income, these big four have earned Rs35,000 crore in FY25. You can imagine how much of that money has gone abroad,” she noted.

When asked why mandates continue to go to global players, one executive told her: it’s about trust and familiarity. Ram argued this mindset can only shift if Indian firms step up their game in presentation and process. “How do you present yourself to your client? How do you address their problems? How do you show to them that these are the processes we follow and there is no deviation from it? That trust factor has to be addressed,” she said.

The government, recognizing the risk of sensitive data leaving the country, has begun exploring ways to build “national champions.” Proposals under consideration include mandating that at least one Indian firm join the Big Four in auditing major companies’ books, a step toward nurturing local credibility.

A Turning Point

These perspectives reveal a layered challenge. India produces world-class talent that is migrating in ever larger numbers. At the same time, within the country, this talent is often undervalued, under-trusted, or under-empowered.

India has already demonstrated scale, in software exports, in global leadership positions held by Indians abroad, and in the sheer numbers of students seeking international education. The next leap will come not from exporting talent, but from creating global champions headquartered in India.