For US retail giant Walmart, home-grown e-commerce company Flipkart is the Indian jewel in its crown. The company, which recently got an infusion of $1.2 billion $1.2 billion Mint Flipkart raises $1.2 bn in Walmart-led funding at near $25-bn valuation Read more from Walmart, is the first stop for Walmart’s chief executive officer Doug McMillon and Walmart International CEO Judith McKenna whenever they are in the south Indian city of Bengaluru. But there’s a more critical cog in the Walmart wheel that’s just out of sight—the Tech India Development Centre that operates across Bengaluru, Chennai, and Gurgaon.
Passage to India
Walmart Labs and India’s offshoring 3.X moment
The pandemic and the US visa restrictions have now made foreign companies more dependent on development centres, owned and operated by these companies. The race for talent is now on. Could this be India’s fourth offshoring wave?
India is home to 1,400 development centres, more than 70% of which belong to American corporations
This is part of a third wave of offshoring; the first was a testing of waters, the second came after the 2008 crash
These centres are not outposts for multinationals like in the first two waves; they are integral extensions of headquarters
Real estate could cease to be a factor in the fourth wave; Indian engineers could code for America from their homes
