FW: Invasion of the managers

Daily Star
http://www.thedaily star.net/ 2006/09/14/ d609141502134. htm

Invasion of the managers
Munim Chowdhury

INDIA has achieved global respect for its managerial talents and many Indians are enjoying top positions in the American corporate world. At least half a dozen Indians are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, including Pepsi Co. Even conservative British companies are filling up top posts with Indian talent. A few years ago, one of the best known marketing schools in the world, the Kellogg School of Business of Northwestern University, after a global search for many months found a dean for the business school, an Indian from Gauhati. No one can deny the fact that India is a major producer of highly talented management and technical personnel today.

India produced Hinduism for domestic consumption and non-violent Buddhism for export. Today India is exporting bifurcated talent to the two worlds. A grade, highly talented people are exported to the western world, B and C grade to the developing countries, and the least talented D grade find their way to Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi entrepreneurs appear to be impressed by the English speaking abilities of the Indian managers.


The wide-scale Indian invasion of Bangladeshi industrial and commercial management is unhealthy and detrimental to the growth of management skill of the younger generation of the educated youth of Bangladesh. Even some of the trading houses are hiring low calibre Indian managers at salaries and benefits 8 to10 times higher than those normally offered to a Bangladeshi with similar talent. They live in Gulshan and Baridhara's posh apartments, enjoy chauffer-driven cars, and employ armies of domestic help.

This is certainly unfair and unjust.

The majority of these managers come to Bangladesh without work permits. They remit home their earnings through unofficial channels. A Bangladeshi owner of a distribution house (distributor of imported products) boastfully told me: "I have 30 expatriate managers." Further enquiry revealed that all thirty are Indians, mostly without work permits. Many of those managers do not appear to have the type of skills unavailable in Bangladesh, which would have made them deserving of the kind of compensation they are being paid.

A result of hiring Indian managers in this manner, when we have some educated Bangladeshi youth with comparable talent whose skills can be easily developed, is that we are destroying the hopes and aspiration of our own talented younger generation.

The multi-national company, British American Tobacco, managed its business most professionally in Bangladesh over the last 36 years without having to import Indian managers. Rather, BAT exported dozens of talented Bangladeshi managers to associated companies overseas, including to the position of director and managing director. By training and allowing Bangladeshi managers to develop and exercise their skills, they have also contributed to filling many top positions in other multi-national companies here in Bangladesh and overseas. Four of its managers served as ministers to the government of Bangladesh and Pakistan (prior to 1971). If the opportunity is provided to educated Bangladeshis with talent and aptitude, their managerial skills can be developed at a much faster rate.

In not just the developed countries of Western Europe and North America, but in many African nations also there is legitimate need for expatriate talents where the rules of engagement of foreign workers are strictly enforced; justification for employment is scrutinized, and work permits issued only when legitimate need, lack of local talent, and the professional capabilities of the foreign worker in question are demonstrated.

If the developing countries of Africa can apply legal rules in employing foreign workers, then what prevents Bangladesh, also a developing country, from enforcing its own rules? Can any Bangladeshi work in a professional job in India without a work permit (other than domestic help and as the sex workers in Bombay and Delhi)?


It will only be fair and just for the government to look seriously into the matter and prevent illegal engagement of foreign nationals for non-essential jobs in Bangladesh. It will require a little patience and sympathetic attention from our business community, too.

Immediately after the creation of Bangladesh in December l971, some Indians in professional fields in New York expressed their opinion that "this is the right time for Indians to move into Bangladesh and help run business and industry." Maybe they thought it was the right time to replace our Pakistani masters. However, it took another 25 years and the process started slowly about 10 years ago. It will take its toll on the new generation of Bangladeshi boys and girls, maybe in the same way as it did prior to 1971, unless we wake up to the reality and guard the interests of our younger generation.

The Bangladesh government should not allow needless engagement of Indian managers or for that matter any other foreign nationals in Bangladeshi industrial and commercial houses. If these Indians were top-rated talents, they would not come to Bangladesh, at the very least they would find their way to Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Dubai, if not North America and Europe.

A little research and discussion with Indian managers will confirm that they certainly do not enjoy life in Dhaka but they are here for the money and its associated comforts. Why not give our own youth with similar education and aptitude the same opportunity and dignity that are being provided to Indians, to develop their management skills? Our industries, business houses and country would benefit more in the long run as a result.


Munim Chowdhury writes from New York and is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.