Eight thousand air-tickets to international destinations, 5,000 to domestic ones, and you still have to teach people how to check in their baggage or cope with jet-lag. That's the lot of Infosys Technologies and it is representative of the original paradox the Indian software industry has to live with. It (the Indian software industry) is as global as can be. Infosys does business in 26 countries, TCS in 25, and Wipro in 20. Paradoxically, Indians-and the bulk of the workforce at these companies is Indian-make bad travellers.

They rarely travel light, most-and this includes those who label themselves non-vegetarians-do not eat beef and pork, and few are aware of the finer cultural nuances involved in doing business in other geographies.

Then, there is the problem unique to quant-jocks: most tend to be introverts-some are border-line sociopaths. Like Pramod Gupta, a HCL Technologies techie, who subsisted on vending-machine fare for the first four days after his arrival in Pittsburgh. ''I can't go to the cafeteria alone because there are too many foreigners there," Gupta griped to his hr (Human Resources) Manager.

That's the under-belly of the business the world seldom sees, but running a software company is as much about the logistics of getting people where the company wants them to be, and training them to fit in there, as it is about moving up the value chain and off-shore business models.

(I)Tour Operators

Infosys' travel requirements would put a mid-sized travel agency to shame: 8,000 international tickets in a year, 5,000 domestic tickets, 2,500 train tickets, 500 bus tickets, 30,000 car requests. In value terms that translates into around 4 per cent of the company's topline. The business model of choice in the Indian software domain may be 'offshore' services where companies work out of India for projects located elsewhere in the world, but that doesn't mean any less travel. Thus, Wipro Technologies, which operates out of six locations in India-Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, New Mumbai, and Gurgaon-does business in (also read as: finds its execs have to frequently travel to) countries as diverse as USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Republic of Ireland, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. And, every month, at least 50 software pros from HCL Technologies hit the road: to Japan, the US, Europe, even Australia. The company's annual travel budget: a whopping $1.75-2 million (Rs 8.5-9.7 crore). And Infosys actually manages its travel function with agents and airlines as partners (it has a tripartite agreement for special rates). All software companies eat their own dogfood. Wipro's travel indenting process, for instance, is on the company's intranet. When an employee needs to travel overseas he creates an online travel request. This goes to his supervisor for approval; it also goes concurrently to Travel Services, which looks after ticketing, Overseas Operations, handling visas and work permits, and Accounts, which controls the purse strings. The Travel Services group interacts with the designated travel agents in each city. Now which travel agency would want to turn away this business.

To succeed, software companies should know how to manage Murthy in Manhattan. And, of course, they need to know how to get Murthy to Manhattan first.

The logistics bit is easily handled (See (I)Tour Operators). It is the other part, the tricky one, that takes up much of the time of Indian software companies-40,000 mandays of training at HCL Tech, for instance. Infosys ventures into a market only after it has studied it for close to a year for a 'cultural fit' with employees. And Wipro's Passport programme ensures that most of its employees go through some cross-cultural training.

Infosys starts early; cross-cultural training is part of the three-month induction programme for employees fresh off the campus. "They come with a lot of baggage; so they need to do a lot of unlearning,'' explains Nandita Gurjar, Assistant Vice President & Head (Learning and Development), Infosys.

The training covers everything from geography to work culture, to dress codes (the company actually shows pictures of people at work) to social etiquette. And HCL seeks out expats who can speak to its employees on the difference between ''you and us''. India, to offer a sampling of the differences, is a high-context culture that emphasises shared experiences and non-verbal cues. The US isn't.

The result? Most Indian employees who land up in the US come across as vague and indirect in their verbal communication. "Employees need to realise that others are different from us," says Shantanu Dhar, Senior Manager (Corporate HR), HCL-T. "We build their ability to accept people in new settings as they are."

The training methodologies range from classical to pop. Wipro uses the Hofstede model to help its employees cope with different cultures.

Hofstede created his model in 1980, after a multi-year research of some 116,000 employees of a multinational corporation identified only as Hermes (after the Greek god of commerce) across 50 countries, developing and developed. Hermes later turned out to be IBM, among the most global of corporations.

To delve into some management theory (something this magazine assiduously avoids, but what the heck, this is the managing section), Hofstede identified four key dimensions of culture. "Power Distance", or the acceptable equality (or inequality) between managers and their employees; "Uncertainty Avoidance", or the degree to which people can cope with ambiguity; "Individualism versus Collectivism"; and "Masculinity versus Femininity", essentially a trade-off between achievement and relationship, or quality of life issues (no prizes for guessing which is which).

Today, there's a fifth dimension to culture, one developed by Michael Bond. This is Confucian Dynamism, or the temporal orientation of different cultures. The Chinese, for instance, have the highest long-term orientation. "It helps the employee understand that in a relationship-conscious culture, he has to be careful with relationships,'' sums up Ranjan Acharya, Wipro's Vice President (Human Resource).

If Hofstede isn't your cup of tea, try Garth Brooks. HCL uses the song Friends In Low Places (about a cowhand who makes a spectacle of himself at his rich girlfriend's party) to stress the importance of dressing for the occasion, something Indians are pretty poor at. Blame it on my roots; I showed up in my boots: I ruined your black tie affair, sings Brooks.

The Indian code-pilot who thought 'Smart Casuals' meant Bermuda shorts and beach thongs would agree with that sentiment.

Nothing is too small or too insignificant for these companies. Infosys has sought the assistance of the Oberoi Group to teach its employees 'dining' skills. Wipro's in-house instructor even tells his wards how to order from a continental menu. Then, there is language. And conversation.

It isn't just the finer nuances of pronunciation, ''our employees need help with what to say and what not to say,'' laughs Wipro's Acharya. India's image as the land of elephants and snake charmers-still prevalent in all but the most informed circles-is a liability. Employees who travel overseas on work find themselves besieged by questions on India. And they don't always cover themselves with glory with their wild descriptions. Infosys actually instructs employees on how to deal with such questions.

''The idea is to help them present a correct picture of India and handle questions on the God who looks like an elephant,'' says Gurjar.

It doesn't help that Indians who travel (or are posted) overseas often end up hanging out with other Indians. ''They remain surrounded by an Indian clique,'' says HCL's Bhattacharya, who actually instructs HCL employees to go churching on Sundays, not to pray, but to interact with people, understand their culture better, and participate at church-fairs.

It isn't exactly easy being a HR pro in charge of cultural acclimatisation at a software hotshop. With companies operating in several countries, employees find it difficult to shift from one newly-assimilated culture, to another. Directness and aggressiveness work in the US. They don't in Japan. And software execs who have been instructed to be direct and aggressive (and have actually done so, with some difficulty) can't exactly shift overnight into the polite-salaryman mode so essential to surviving in Japan.

The hr department also has to keep track of local labour laws-you can't work employees 60 hours a week in some countries-but that's easily done. It is the boots and the black tie that aren't.

(Some names have been changed on request)