Cricket and the Indian business community in Amsterdam

3 September 2011

It’s a rare sunny – almost tropical – Saturday in the Netherlands at the end of what was the wettest summer in over a century. ‘Look around you,’ says Varinder Dhoot. ‘It feels like being back in India.’ Families are gathered, samosas are being shared and there’s the regular crack of cricket bats.
Dhoot is managing director of the European subsidiary of Kirloskar, one of India’s largest engineering companies, and his employees form one of the fifteen teams competing during the 5th anniversary edition of the annual India Day Cricket Tournament taking place at a cricket club in Amstelveen, just outside Amsterdam.

Over 500 spectators have gathered for this event organised by Amsterdam Inbusiness, the region’s foreign investment agency, who try to make it easier for Indian companies to live and work among the Dutch. Paddy Arunachalam, engagement manager at the European office of Infosys, India’s second largest IT company, regards the tournament as ‘a mirror of what is happening in the local Indian business community. Both the scale and level of participation keeps increasing.’

Over the past five years, the number of Indian companies operating around Amsterdam has more than quadrupled to 72 companies. Eighty per cent of these companies are from the IT sector, and include such major players as Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Cognizant. Indians are currently the area’s fastest growing expat groups. With the State Bank of India recently announcing the setting up an Amsterdam branch, this population will only increase as doing business between the two countries becomes easier.
According to Dhoot, three factors brought Kirloskar to the Netherlands: the central location, the population’s excellent English-language skills and the logistics – eased by both Schiphol airport and extensive harbour facilities. ‘Our original base in Europe was in the Czech Republic because it was cheap. But here they offer other assets. For instance we could set up our business in just thirty days.’

Anuj Sharma, senior manager of NIIT Technologies Benelux, agrees that the Dutch government has made it relatively easy for Indian companies to work here. ‘An organisation like the Expat Centre that makes the bureaucracy involved in settling here much easier for employees, just does not exist in the US or UK. We are also able to bring someone here within three weeks – elsewhere it can take three or four months. In this way deals can be opened and closed much faster.’ Having enjoyed 20 per cent growth this year, NIIT now has two teams competing at this year’s tournament. ‘We have employees coming in from Belgium just to get a taste this Indian diaspora.’

Her Excellency Mrs Bhaswati Mukherjee, India’s ambassador to the Netherlands, was on hand to award the tournament’s main trophy to IT company Mahindra Satyam. ‘The Indians and the Dutch are united in that they both beat the game’s inventors: the English,’ she laughed, referring to the Netherlands’ upset win over England at the Twenty20 World Cup in 2009.

Jan van Zanen, mayor of Amstelveen, the city that forms the heart of the Indian expat community, later added ‘Cricket is for the Indians what football is for the Dutch. It touches people and brings them together. And while we should always try to make it easier for Indian businesses to set up here, we must also make sure they feel at home.’

The planning of the city’s third annual Diwali celebrations in October, that attracts thousands from across Benelux, is – like a cricket bat – already in full swing.

Source: Amsterdam in Business, Sep 3