India’s companies are no longer just the world’s talent hub. They’re hiring globally

Indian companies are increasingly looking beyond India, not simply to fill talent gaps, but to build businesses closer to global customers and markets.

A new survey by global payroll and HR platform Deel of 1,008 senior business and HR decision-makers across seven major Indian cities finds that 77% of Indian companies plan to increase global hiring over the next 12–18 months. More than half (54%) already have over a quarter of their workforce outside India, while 58% operate across four or more countries and nearly one in five across more than 10.

From Talent Shortage to Global Growth

Access to specialised or emerging skills is cited by 34% of respondents as the top reason for hiring overseas, closely followed by proximity to customers and local markets at 33%. Another 20% cite the ability to run 24/7 operations.

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“Technology and engineering roles are leading the way, particularly core developers, AI/ML specialists and R&D talent. Sales and customer-facing roles are also among the top priorities,” Rakesh Gaur, Head of Sales, India at Deel, tells Business Today.
According to the survey, nearly nine in 10 (89%) companies hiring globally are looking for advanced technology and engineering talent, followed by sales and business development at 80% and product and design at 45%. North America is the leading destination at 36%, followed by Europe/UK at 27% and APAC at 21%.

“For years, India was where global companies came to hire because of cost. Today, Indian companies are going out into the world to hire the best talent, wherever it exists, driven by capability and customer proximity rather than cost alone,” he says. “We're watching Indian companies graduate from being the world's cost centre to being a customer in the world's talent market.”
Gaur says Indian companies are deliberately building teams in the markets where they want to grow and compete. But as the footprint expands, execution becomes harder: companies need local market understanding and the operational infrastructure to scale across countries without compromising compliance or agility.

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Compliance, Not Cost, Is the New Globalisation Challenge

For companies expanding across borders, however, finding talent may be easier than managing it.

Three-quarters (76%) of respondents identify compliance and administrative burden as their biggest challenge to global expansion, rather than the cost of hiring internationally.  Companies have to navigate local payroll, tax laws, statutory benefits, employment rules, data privacy and permanent-establishment requirements across markets.

One in three (36%) of companies report moderate or significant disruption because of compliance issues.
Compliance delays are already affecting expansion. Local entity setup taking longer than expected is the biggest cause of delays (42%), followed by visa, immigration or work-permit delays (31%), payroll, tax or statutory filing errors (27%) and internal system gaps (25%).

Seven in 10 (70%) companies say these delays have pushed back a product or market launch, while 59% report delayed revenue because new hires were not productive on time and 49% have experienced a lost or delayed deal, contract or project. Only 20% report no measurable financial impact.

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The Infrastructure Problem

Nearly half (46%) of companies use a central HR system but still manage global payroll manually, while 44% use between two and five separate HR or workforce platforms to manage international teams.

“The biggest mistake is treating global hiring as a series of one-off decisions rather than building a scalable operating model. A company can hire its first five overseas employees to meet a specific business need, a contractor here, an Employer of Record (EOR) there, and it works. But the moment you're operating in ten-plus countries, that ad hoc approach becomes a burden,” says Gaur.

Building the Global Workforce

Employer of Record models are already part of the mix.

Thirty-four per cent already use an EOR, while another 24% use a combination of EORs, contractors and owned entities depending on the country and role. Among companies using EORs, 40% say the model saves both time and cost, while another 35% say it primarily saves time.

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India's globalisation may increasingly be measured not only by where its companies sell, but by where they build teams and how effectively they manage them.