The offshore potential of India

India can — and should — position itself as the world’s offshore haven for emerging tech, and the ingredients are already on the table: a large, English-speaking youth population, massive uptake of online learning, and competitive cost economics. But don’t get starry-eyed: the gap isn’t lack of talent, it’s inconsistent quality and trust. That’s where a practical, market-facing fix — a “skill-assessment handshake” between foreign buyers and Indian business partners — becomes a game changer.

First, the market reality. Tariffs on physical goods are headline fodder (think “Trump Tariffs”, “trade war with India”, “US India trade war”) and they drive media cycles and sourcing choices — Google Trends clearly shows high search interest in these topics. But services are a different animal: traditional customs tariffs don’t apply the same way to cross-border services; regulatory barriers, local licensing and data requirements are the friction points, not a simple import duty. Multilateral bodies warn that attempting to “tariff” services is impractical and damaging.

So where does India win? When buyers need reliable, scalable teams for AI pipelines, cloud platforms, data engineering, cybersecurity, full-stack and mobile apps, DevOps, MLops, AR/VR, blockchain, IoT and low-code automation — India can supply competence at scale. But online courses alone produce uneven outcomes: certificates don’t always equal production-grade delivery.

Enter the skill-assessment handshake. It’s simple, painful, effective:

• Pre-engagement lab tests — short, live coding/architecture sprints jointly designed by the foreign client and the Indian partner.

• Outcome-based mini-contracts — pay for a deliverable, not a resume.

• Shared QA/mentorship windows — an initial overlap where the hiring company validates deliverables and transfers tacit requirements.
  This structure trades generic credentialing for measured capability, cutting onboarding risk and aligning incentives. Promot Technologies, the core tech division of S.K. Agri-Tech Pvt. Ltd. excels at conducting on-premises assessment of the prospective partners for foreign off-shoring companies analysing a variety of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), aims to establish itself as the leader, way beyond the outdated legacy ’Standards and Quality frameworks’ organisations.

Policy tailwinds matter too. With global supply chains rethinking resilience amid trade tensions, services and digital delivery are attractive because they aren’t exposed to traditional tariffs — the risk is regulatory, not duty-based. Thoughtful Indian firms can leverage this by building compliance, data-sovereignty practices and export-grade SLAs.

Skeptically speaking: scaling this won’t be frictionless. It requires honest assessment frameworks, upfront investment in client-facing assessment labs, and a cultural shift from “certificates mean hireable” to “prove it in 7 days.” But if India institutionalises the handshake — aligning online education with validated, short-form competency tests and outcome contracts — it will convert its enormous human capital and learning infrastructure into an unassailable offshore advantage for emerging tech. The world’s buyers will follow capability, not headlines about tariffs.