India is Worried about Its Inability to Innovate.

I've got a file in my email from Indian e-learning companies who have contacted me because I am an important decision maker at Work-Learning Research, Inc. (my research and consulting practice). I must have gotten emails from over 50 Indian e-Learning companies. Almost enough so that I have begun to feel a deep personal relationship.

Perhaps this is why I read this article in the New York Times with such interest. It says that Indian companies are afraid they will remain the low-cost provider and they will fail to innovate.

Well, I wonder if this is true in the learning-and-performance field. I'm not an industry analyst so I'm sure I don't see the big picture here, but the following data points come to mind:

  1. Almost all of my emails from Indian e-learning companies highlight their cost advantage.
  2. My efforts over the years to get consulting or workshop business with Indian e-learning companies has been fruitless. If they wanted to differentiate their work by investing in research-based insights, you'd think at least one Indian e-learning firm would have attempted to warm themselves in the glow of my wisdom. WINK. WINK. Maybe my marketing might is poorly directed.
  3. I have heard some Indian e-learning company employees talking about Indian e-learning companies taking over the U.S. marketplace within the next 10 years…
  4. Many U.S. vendors I have talked with who off-shored their development work to India talked about poor instructional design. Of course, they might just be ticked off at the price competition or worried about their jobs.
  5. NIIT bought one of our most premium brands, Cognitive Arts, many years ago now, but such mergers don't seem to be trending up.

What's going on? If you have an idea–or just some more data points–leave a comment below.

Until they begin to hire me, I won't believe they are truly ready to innovate.

I can be reached in the U. S. at my contact information. SMILE.

Seriously though, anybody know who's keeping tabs on the Indian e-learning invasion? Anybody know what's going on?