Positioning Indian Emigration to Japan: The Case of the IT Industry

The purpose of this paper is to show how the Indian IT industry could position itself in the Japanese market. But in order to accomplish this, it is necessary to identify the key challenges and opportunities the Indian IT industry faces in the Japanese market. The opportunities for India, as well as other IT-strong developing countries, are to supply technical talent, whose availability in Japan is constrained by the secular demographic crisis and changing educational and occupational preferences. The challenges for India are the institutional barriers, in particular, Japanese business practices that act as significant barriers to the entry of foreign skilled professionals. The paper brings out the source and pattern of foreign professionals and students in Japan as a proxy for talent. Though India’s presence in Japan is currently limited, its share of technical professionals to the total number of Indians in Japan is the highest. Also, the preconditions in the Japanese economy suggest a historic opportunity to forge a long-term, mutually beneficial, bilateral partnership between the two countries. For India, this means reducing its dependence on the US market and availing new learning opportunities. For Japan, it means access to technical professionals and managed interfacing with the global economy.