Tag Archives: India

Resource: Kelly Services India Salary Handbook & Survey for 2008…

If you are looking for salary benchmarks in India, check out this wonderful resource. Kelly Services is a leading international recruitment & staffing firm and they are deeply entrenched in India with offices in 12 cities. Kelly has released a Salary Handbook for India for 2008/09 that can serve as a very useful reference point for the latest salary trends & new job titles. They claim that the salary ranges in the handbook are a realistic representation of the jobs marketplace.

The handbook encompasses different areas – Banking & Finance, Engineering & Technical, Human Resources, Information Technology, ITeS – BPO, Logistics & Warehousing, Office Support, Sales & Marketing. It consists of job titles, suggested job descriptions along with the salary ranges.

The handbook is embedded in the form of a ppt below but it is available for download at the Kelly website.

I went through the handbook and it comes across as an excellent benchmark for salary data. The data looks fairly credible to me.

A big thanks to the company for releasing this publicly ( and free of charge)…

Why everything from USA is great and from Asia is weird/funny? And what about India?

Ever wondered why everything (about the internet) from the USA is great and that from Asia is weird or funny? Why innovation on the web is the prerogative of US based companies? These are the questions that Benjamin Joffe seeks to dispel in this very popular presentation (shared on slideshare). Benjamin is the head of Plus8Star, a Beijing based consulting company that focuses on mobile & internet related ‘innovation arbitrage’ in China, South Korea & Japan. The presentation focuses on new business models in online communities and their evolution. As many of the popular global social networks grapple with their monetization strategies, they would do well to take a leaf out of their oriental counterparts. Consider this- 2007 revenues for Facebook was 150 mn, while that for Cyworld (largest SNS in Korea) was 200 mn, for MIXI (largest in Japan) was 100 mn and for QQ (largest in China) was 520 mn! QQ’s reach is almost the same as Facebook (200 mn users). The key postulate put forth is that business models for online social networks in China, Japan & South Korea are far more evolved than in the west, probably because those societies have very high digital dependencies. Do check out the slide deck … some of the facts/figures are going to hit you like a sledgehammer.

So the obvious question that you are likely to ask- what about India? How do the Indian examples stack up on this scale? Indian SNS figures actually pale into insignificance when put alongside these staggering numbers. Out of a total base of 30 mn Indian internet users, the most optimistic figure for users of social networks (Indian & global sites put together) is about 10 mn. Orkut, the biggest player in India reportedly has 7 mn users, and Facebook has 1.5 mn users. And none of the Indian homegrown websites have more than 1-1.5 mn users. These usage levels are way below the thresholds required for successful monetizations in online communities, which need a critical mass for the numbers to kick in. Lack of vernacular language content is a huge bottleneck in achieving those break-even numbers. The sheer diversity that exists in our country- different languages, ethnicities etc, coupled along with the colonial hangover for English takes a heavy toll here.

And what about perceptions of quality & innovativeness for products coming out of India? Well, given India’s overriding image as an outsourcing backend to the world, it’s not hard to imagine the typical stereotypes about India. In my role as one of the founders of a global website which is being built out of India, I’ve had quite a few notable experiences on this count. Some of these experiences are fascinating, while some are downright unpleasant. However at this point in time, I’d rather focus on my work, than get swayed by such considerations. I’ll probably touch upon them later at a more opportune moment.