Worlds Largest Head-Hunter Sets Up Shop In India

Korn/Ferry International wants you. If you are an ambitious, accomplished executive who is hankering for a break with a top-notch company, that is. The worlds largest executive search firm, which helped Jack Welch on his path to legendary status as GEs electrifying general, formally opened its country office in the capital yesterday. And president and chief executive officer Michael D Boxberger, who inaugurated the office, wasted no time in declaring that the company sees India as part of its global talent pool from which the best talent will be placed in plum executive posts worldwide.

The movement of Indian executives into senior decision-making positions outside the country has already begun, and this will gain greater momentum within the next few years, predicted Boxberger, who became the London-based companys first non-promoter CEO on May 1, 1997.

 

Boxberger pointed out that multinationals are increasingly recruiting local staff at top positions within the country, and then transferring them overseas. It is when these senior executives get rotated within the MNCs global offices that Indians join the world stream of managerial talent and can then get picked up by any other international company anywhere in the world he said. Refuting observations that MNCs prefer to fill top positions in emerging and other Asian countries with expatriates and non-resident citizens, Boxberger said the trend was increasingly towards recruiting local talent.

Our feedback from Indian clients reconfirms our belief that more and more foreign companies are going in for senior executives who have a long experience of working in the country, he said.

Explaining the firms decision to venture into India, Boxberger, who is himself on his maiden voyage to India, admitted: Companies like us enter newer markets on the coat-tails of our best clients, which are large multinational companies. However, he hastened to add that Korn/Ferry would actively seek to expand its range of clients to include local firms.

The $200 million company is bullish on Asia, and with good reason. The Asia desk, which includes Japan, Australia and New Zealand as well as the south and east Asian countries, is the fastest growing region within Korn/Ferry, contributing about 15 per cent to the companys global revenues. This is expected to increase to over 20 per cent by the year 2000.

The company has set its Indian operations the ambitious target of accounting for 5 per cent of its total turnover in the Asian region within three years. It is optimistic of achieving this goal by relying on its research intensive data-base and search programme.

The importance attached to research and constant technology upgradation by the company can be assessed from the fact that it invests $15 million annually on its networking and monitoring system around the globe.

The executive search firm is initially targeting banks and financial institutions and hopes to pick up clients in the infrastructure and the fast moving consumer goods sector as well.

But it will shortlist only those organisations with which it can have long-term relationships.

We would like to do business with clients who will have multiple needs over several years that we could fulfil. We are not going to be associated with one that gives us one contract in five years, for example, elaborated Boxberger.

Korn/Ferry has also decided not to be associated with entry and junior-level recruitments in the country.

A person with only five years experience does not have enough track-record to justify our recommendation. We need to be able to give a detailed long-term performance report of the person we recommend to our client said Boxberger.

Korn/Ferry has also decided to abstain from tapping public sector undertakings (PSUs) for filling private sector positions in the country. Indian PSUs might have an enormous pool of technically skilled executives, but typically lack people with adequate commercial sense, believes Boxberger.

The profit orientation is vastly different in PSUs from that in the private sector, most notably in terms of cost and revenue he said.

Commenting that he expects the Indian market to move much faster than the Chinese market, Boxberger praised Indian business schools for having already put the country on the entry-level recruitment map of many MNCs, by providing inexpensive, high quality talent.