Tweet Foreign languages in a Consultant’s Armor

As per Thomas Freidman the “World is Flat”. This has never been more relevant.

 France opening up its IT market to Indian companies, Germany scrambling around for export deals, Russia, US and France leaving no stone  unturned for securing Nuclear and Defense  deals from India, France signing a 10 billion dollar trade deal with China, Japan opening up R&D centers in India, Australia mulling mining partnerships with Indian firms, China and Indian Oil companies (ONGC and CNOOC) contemplating joint bidding possibilities for overseas oil exploration projects, Dubai government setting up IT parks and inviting Indian IT majors to set up shop there and the list goes on and on.

With ever more Indian IT Consultants travelling on short term and long term assignments across the world, one of the differentiating factors in the Consultants portfolio will be his foreign language and etiquette skills.  In this article, I attempt to provide foreign language options and their relevance available to Consultants.  This article will enable the Consultant to short list one or more foreign languages to get trained in, based on his regional preferences. I once again reiterate that with a gamut of tools and methodologies, available for Consulting, Business Analysis, System Analysis, Project management the next level of differentiation will come from his foreign language skills and his ability to cut across multiple cultures.

Also with a host of translation tools, video and audio tutorials available online on every leading international language (all thanks to Web 2.0), it’s never been more simpler to learn a foreign language provided consultants are willing to invest some time/effort and follow a disciplined study schedule.

Disclaimer: the primary objective of this article is to provide consultants with a high level view of the important languages mainly from a perspective of the leading geographies where Indian IT companies operate. It is not meant to discuss demographics of the dominant languages in the world

I provide below, Geography/country/language wise information: (though this is not an exhaustive list, is covers most of the leading and emerging countries where Indian IT companies operate)

North America and Canada region:

Dominant language 1: English

Dominant Language 2: Spanish(North America) and French(Canada)

Good proficiency in English is enough to interact with Client teams with proficiency in French an added advantage in Canada for informal meetings and rapport building.

Europe:

This geography is the most complex in terms of language divergence with three languages being the most dominant namely English, German and French

• United Kingdom and Ireland – English is the only language in these countries. However both are established Outsourcing countries for Indian IT companies
• Germany – German is the only language for this country. This is an emerging destination for IT companies
• France- French is the primary language spoken in this country. This is also an emerging destination for IT companies and packs huge potential for big ticket IT deals
• Spain- Spanish is the primary language spoken in this country. Though Spanish is one of the dominant languages worldwide, its dominance in Europe is somewhat restricted to Spain

For the remaining countries across Europe, there is a mix of countries speaking German, English, French in addition to their local languages. However, knowledge of English may be sufficient to interact with client teams here (E.g Sweden:Sweidish and English, Norway:Norwegian and English)

Germany and France seems to offer good promise in this geography, mainly because these countries have been relatively closed to outsourcing in the past and they have been difficult markets to penetrate for Indian firms due to legal and language issues. Its only lately that these countries have bitten the outsourcing bug more seriously and there are huge deals to win in these 2 countries

Ref: http://business-standard.com/india/news/infy-bullisheurope-kris/101254/on

Middle East:

The official language for this region is Arabic (Hebrew for Israel). However English is an acceptable business language and hence consultants will not find a compelling need to learn Arabic while on assignment in these regions

Popular choices here (for the Indian IT consultant) are UAE (mainly Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi), Israel (partnership with Indian firms is on the rise)

Asia:

Here the language landscape is little complex similar to Europe with no clear dominant language. However one’s country preference will decide on the choice of language. Even here, if your choice is only English there are countries to choose from as given below:

• Singapore- official language is English
• Malaysia, South Korea- though the official language is Malay and Korean, English is an accepted second language and hence consultant will not have many barriers in communication
• China- official language is Chinese.  Though English speaking population is on the rise, at present the Consultant will need to be well versed in Chinese for informal communication
• Japanese-official language is Japanese. Though speaking Japanese is a clear advantage for informal communication, the Consultant may subjectively survive with only English. However for long term assignments, getting trained in Japanese is definitely an advantage

 Ref:

http://business-standard.com/india/news/infy-plans-rs-440-cr-china-campus/412351/

Australia:

In Australia, the official language is English

South America:

Once again like Europe and Asia, the language landscape is complex, fragmented and diverse. Here I discuss only some of the emerging economies where Indian IT majors have set-up near shore centers

• Brazil- the official language is Portuguese. However English is well accepted as a second language
• Argentina- the official language is Spanish. However English, French and German are accepted second languages
• Venezuela- the official language is Spanish. However English is an accepted second language
• Columbia- the official language is Spanish. However English is an accepted second language

Africa:

Here I cover only the major economies from an IT perspective.

• South Africa- although there are 11 official languages in south Africa, English is the most widely accepted and spoken of them all
• Algeria- the official language is Arabic. The second language is French with most of the population well versed in French since this was a former French colony
• Ethiopia –the official language is Amharic. However English is a widely spoken second language
• Kenya – the official language is Swahili. However English is a widely spoken second language
• Senegal, Rwanda and Madagascar – the widely spoken language here is French

I have summarized the language diversity in a table:

Based on this article the consultant will get the first level view of choosing a foreign language he wants to be trained in. It may also enable him to short list geographies for working on projects.

For some countries like Germany, France and China it may be perennially important to get trained in their local languages before going for long term assignments

Whatever be the case, getting trained in one important foreign language like French, German, Japanese, Chinese will always be strategically important to get preference for projects in certain countries, establish informal rapport with client managers and teams and blend with the local population and carry on day-to-day tasks after accepting long term relocation assignments

PS: Assuming that this article is mainly targeted at Indian IT Consultants, I assume that all of them are well versed in English (by virtue of their job needs and education system in India) and hence I treat English as a native and not a foreign language