<b><font color ='orange'>EXPAT INDIA INC.</font></b>

Foreigners are exploring India not for jobs, but for entrepreneurial ventures. Beyond the occasional cultural conflict, they find business is good
Corsica-born Sandra Samai’s first exposure to India was while working with the customer services department of Disney cruise liner in Florida a few years ago. The slightly built 30-year-old trained at the Disney Institute in aromatherapy massages and in managing spas. “I knew nothing about India but there were some Indians on the ship. My next Indian connect was when a classmate from Corsica who was doing a semester at IIM Lucknow invited me to visit,” says Samai. Her Corsican friend suggested opening a spa in India. Since she was short on funds, Samai hired and trained four women masseurs, and started www.lsahomecare.com where you can book a spa treatment to come to your home in Delhi. It costs Rs 2,000 per hour. “My service is the Disney way. The customer is a VIP and there can be absolutely no compromise on quality,” says Sandra, who has developed her own training handbook for her staff. Lsa Home Care has a huge following among high net-worth individuals in Delhi. They have a database of 300 clients that include actor Karisma Kapoor and designers Manish Arora and Rohit Bal.

For decades, India’s best and brightest migrated to the West in search of opportunities. That changed a while ago and India has become a hot destination for foreigners who are working in the IT and BPO sector, which employs approximately 30,000 foreigners here. Now, Americans and Europeans are enchanted not by incredible, mystical India, but the heady professional opportunities available here—even for small and medium businesses. Of late, there are foreigners exploring India not for jobs, but for entrepreneurial ventures, where they can combine their specialised skills with this dynamic environment.

Earlier this year, a German businessman, Michael Brecht launched a business social networking site for Australians, ZaaBiz.com. Since this month, August, ZaaBiz.com has expanded to India. “Within a few weeks of launching in Australia I figured there were 30,000 users from the Indian diaspora,” explains Brecht, “I thought, why not launch it formally in India?” According to Brecht’s figures, Indians could constitute 70 per cent of ZaaBiz.com’s projection of one million members, the largest in the Asia-Pacific region. His team back in Australia has 10 employees of which four are Indians. “I plan to set up a full-fledged office and have a separate marketing team over here,” says Brecht, who is currently in Mumbai for an official launch and promotion of the portal. His members are mostly small and medium scale entrepreneurs from industrial sectors, finance, retail and real estate. ZaaBiz.com has a popular online group called Gateway to India, for entrepreneurs abroad to discuss business opportunities here. Brecht’s clients in Mumbai include PR and travel companies like Adfactors and Blue Lotus Communications.

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