The Ripple Effects of Protectionism – Microsoft as a Case Study

I came across an interested article today, one originally published in 2007 which makes it even more interesting as its commentary comes before the global recession reached its destructive climax.

The article tells the story of Parminder Singh, a man who immigrated to Canada with his family when he was only 6 years old. It talks about the issues he had getting into the US job market due to his birthplace of New Delhi, and how he overcame US immigration issues to emerge as a key Microsoft employee.

But underlying this story, written before Buy-US provisions were introduced, written before Barack Obama was the US president, is a is commentary on protectionism and why countries need to thoughtfully and carefully review their views on immigration.

Microsoft is a classic example of this. In the article Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft’s government affairs director at the time, was quoted saying:

"We currently do 85 per cent of our development work in the U.S., and we'd like to continue doing that. But if we can't hire the developers we need, we're going to have to look to other options to get the work done."

And over the last couple of years, we’ve seen Microsoft do just that. Instead of dealing with US immigration, they opened up the Microsoft Canadian Developer Center in British Columbia. If the US doesn’t want Canadians or others from elsewhere in the world coming to work for a US company on US soil, the company will go to them. Interestingly enough, its Canada’s immigration policies that have made this move so attractive for Microsoft, allowing them to source and attain international talent.

This past year Microsoft Tech Ed, one of their two premiere conferences, was held in Los Angeles. At the same time, Microsoft Tech Ed was also occurring in India. Which one did Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer choose to deliver the keynote to? The India event.

Companies do not require to be operating in their home country to be successful, and hindering their ability to hire talented prospects due to protectionist policy only hurts the country in question.

What also seems to be missed in all of this is the spin-off benefits of bringing in talented workers from other countries. While they live and work in a foreign country they also contribute to the local economy through commerce as well as the local governments through taxation.

What about the concern that immigrants will take jobs that should be considered to local citizens first? This, I believe, serves as a warning for North America: competition is not solely within your borders. If there is talent locally, then there should be no issue: it is still far cheaper to hire local talent then having to source international prospects.

But if there’s *not* talent pool to draw on, where does that leave a company like Microsoft? How can a company continue to thrive and be profitable if its hindered by a lacklustre local workforce? The answer is that it shouldn’t. For us that make up the workforce, we need to ensure that we’re striving to be better not just within our own circles of peers and competitors, but also with our global competitors.

As the saying goes, don’t hate the player…hate the game. But if there is a better player out there, wouldn’t you rather have them playing for your team (read: country)?