When does a career become attractive?
When demand for a certain skill is high and supply is low.
If you want to make it even better, opt for things that will continue to have high demand but very low supply in the foreseeable future due to systemic reasons.
International business law work is soaring right now.
Post pandemic, there is a massive boom in companies tapping international markets, e-commerce is growing at an incredible pace and apart from large corporations, even startups are expanding abroad in light of remote work.
Do you know why the demand for international business law work is skyrocketing at the moment?
Imagine, how awesome would it be if you can sell whatever you are selling in India in other countries with more advanced economies, where prices are generally much higher?
This is arbitrage. You benefit from low input costs in India while selling at higher prices in the US, UK, Middle East, Europe etc.
This has always been the dream of every Indian business.
This is how China became a manufacturing giant.
This is how TCS became the largest Indian company.
This is how Infosys created many billionaires.
This is how companies like Zoho or Freshworks have come to dominate the world in SaaS business.
So this is not a new playbook. It has been the dream of Indian entrepreneurs always.
However, some things have changed after the pandemic. A perfect storm has cooked.
Let me explain how.
- India is no more a mere outsourcing destination. We have a large number of technology companies that are creating their own products and selling to consumers in India and are ready to sell abroad.
- These Indian product companies started by focussing on Indian consumers, catering to the local needs of businesses and consumers for cheaper software, and now they are poised to sell globally as their products are mature and have achieved local success.
- Digital media, online marketing, and global dropshipping infrastructure have made it very easy to sell your product anywhere in the world.
- High cost of software is a bane for global businesses and consumers during this pandemic. Everyone is looking for cheaper alternatives, which gives Indian businesses an advantage as our input costs are far lower.
- Indian companies are also facing a lot of setbacks in their local markets thanks to the pandemic, forcing them to look outside for larger markets.
- Indian businesses that sold digital products to international clients found it easier to survive the lockdown, and have in fact grown faster during this time.
- Selling internationally does not only mean higher margins or a larger market to tap, it also brings more competitiveness, diversification, and stability.
- A lot of foreign jurisdictions are low tax compared to India, and selling digital products in such countries can unlock tremendous profitability for Indian companies that are paying higher taxes at home.
- As it is often said, it is easier to earn a dollar than earning a rupee. This is fast becoming the mantra for Indian CEOs.
- Availability of venture capital has also become a huge factor. A massive amount of risk capital is available today to Indian entrepreneurs, and investors expect very fast accelerated growth, which is more likely to happen if they can expand internationally.
- One major constraint for international expansion was capital requirements. Tech and digital companies have lower capital requirements and also grow faster, so offshore markets are easily within reach.
The case for expanding Indian businesses and startups internationally is impeccable and hard to ignore.
So everyone wants to do an international expansion. Apart from tech and digital economy, even other successful Indian businesses are eyeing international businesses thanks to massive cost arbitrage opportunities.
Here are the Indian industries that are set to go international in a big way in years to come:
- Spacetech
- Telemedicine
- Vaccine and pharma
- SaaS
- E-commerce
- Manufacturing
- QSR (quick service restaurants)
- Ayurveda and traditional medicine
- Digital media
- Advertising and digital marketing
- IT services
- Automobile
- Edutech
- Healthcare (Indian hospital chains have led healthcare accessibility in Africa, for instance, and have begun to expand into South East Asia)
Today Indian businesses rely almost entirely on advice of very expensive international law firms because there is absolutely no opportunity for Indian lawyers to learn anything about such work in India.
Indian law schools do not teach this work.
Indian law firms are almost never involved in such work.
Some Indian in-house counsels have learnt this work due to international exposure through trial and error, but mostly in-house teams outsource such work at a great cost to foreign law firms.
So yes, the supply is almost zero while the demand for such work is at an all-time high, plus growing fast.
What is the kind of work we are talking about?
What kind of work do you do if you are an international business lawyer?
- International business expansion and market entry
- Incorporation and business licenses in foreign jurisdictions
- FDI and foreign exchange regulations in different countries
- Negotiating and drafting international contracts
- Tax structuring
- Compliance in foreign jurisdictions
- Legal inputs and advice for international business strategy
- Risk assessment for international business
- IP registration and enforcement abroad
- Dispute resolution in foreign jurisdictions
- Enforcing arbitration awards and decrees in foreign countries
At LawSikho, we always focus on such areas because then it is easy for us to help our students to find jobs, internships and freelance work, in which case our course becomes very successful.
We are focusing on International Business Laws for the following reasons:
- High levels of unfulfilled demand.
- There is a special window of opportunity right now in this area. On one hand, more startups and businesses are going international, while none of the law colleges are teaching the skills required. It will remain very hard in years to come to learn anything about this area of work except for a very few people.
- Supply will remain low in the foreseeable future because most lawyers restrict themselves to one jurisdiction anyway, but these businesses require experts who have multi-jurisdictional expertise.
- Such expertise can only be found in some big UK/ US/ Singapore/ Hong Kong law firms – and those people are very expensive. In fact, they are the most expensive lawyers in the world.
Do you want to learn more about these things?
Do you want a massive career boost?
Then do not miss our 3-day bootcamp starting today, 6-9 pm Indian Standard Time. Do not forget to set an alarm on your phone so you do not miss this.
Also in today’s session, we will teach you how to incorporate a Singapore entity, how to choose an entry vehicle, give you a checklist for international launch and selecting a jurisdiction and show you all the advisory work around this.
Don’t miss it! And no we will not upload this on YouTube, it would be restricted to those who can attend live.
See you.
Here is the registration link if you have not registered yet: http://bit.ly/2Q2NrYn
If you want to be notified about other workshops and webinars conducted by LawSikho on International Business, please join the WhatsApp group below: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LRvsvhatFBB4Tbf4wRlmhY
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