Why BPO Will Be The Death of India

Good article Anoop! I`ve had similar experiences with a bank in India that has outsourced its call center operations. Two of the call center executives gave me different answers to the same question leaving me totally confused. But thankfully (as you have pointed out too), I was able to escalate the matter through e-mail and solve the problem.

Ref Maasanamuthu #56

[If you`re too lazy or stupid (as in your case) to ask someone who`s in the know, search the company`s SEC filings & check their financial statements. But that would mean having to spend time elsewhere learning, while you could be grandstanding here, being a legend in your own mind, calling everyone names.]

Who is grandstanding here? Aren`t you the one kissing the Paki a$$ along with any other that shows up (such as Sonia Gandhi) so long as that butt doesn`t belong to an Indian?

[ ``Compassionate leader?`` Maybe you need to get a colleague to prescribe you prozac..]

Don`t try to drum up business for Headshrinker.

[To anyone else interested in the issues, as far as I know, there`s only a handful of high-profile indian software companies (i-flex solutions & polaris among them) that take R&D semi-seriously. The intellectual property (IP) component of indian IT industry is very, very miniscule. If Indians working for foreign companies either in india or abroad can generate a vast amount of IP so can indians working for indian companies, provided there is a budget for it.]

Yeah, let me give you an example of IP generated by the great IBM. It is a prioritization algorithm for the use of toilets on a plane, taking into account the fare basis (such as First, Business or Coach).

IBM has decided not to enforce the patent on this or demand royalties from any airline wanting to use the algorithm.

You might want to see if you could use this to prioritize your butt-kissing routine.

#53
You have a relative working at Infosys and yet you ``google`` to get your info, so you can attain instant knowledge & bash someone else. Wonderful!
If you`re too lazy or stupid (as in your case) to ask someone who`s in the know, search the company`s SEC filings & check their financial statements. But that would mean having to spend time elsewhere learning, while you could be grandstanding here, being a legend in your own mind, calling everyone names. ``Compassionate leader?`` Maybe you need to get a colleague to prescribe you prozac..
To anyone else interested in the issues, as far as I know, there`s only a handful of high-profile indian software companies (i-flex solutions & polaris among them) that take R&D semi-seriously. The intellectual property (IP) component of indian IT industry is very, very miniscule. If Indians working for foreign companies either in india or abroad can generate a vast amount of IP so can indians working for indian companies, provided there is a budget for it.

I cannot help myself linking the article with the topic and even with the caption. Would you help, Mr. Writer?

Ref Maasanamuthu #43

[I know about infosys because I know someone there who is near the top...]

Someone who serves tea to the executives, perhaps?

[At any rate, it`s true of india-based IT companies in general that they invest little in R&D. The prevalent thought is that it eats into margin and is therefore not a good idea.]

Pray tell us, what exactly is R&D in the IT industry? Are you talking about a new language along the lines of C++, C# and Java? A radically new approach to programming using a completely functional language based approach? Possibly a lambda-calculus (you don`t know what that means, do you?) derived language? Tell us how you plan to get the world to adopt this new thingie to come out of R&D?

If one cuts the crap, it is obvious that the vast majority of IT work happens to be writing SQL code to access RDBMSs, COBOL/VSAM to access legacy data and HTML code to web-enable crappy applications. Don`t glorify this by calling this``information TECHNOLOGY``. However, we at Chowk are all agog to know what you consider to be valid R&D in this area. Maybe we can then get your contacts at high-level at Infosys to impress upon Narayanamurthy the need for R&D investment.

[But the good times will not last forever and we cannot continue to live on someone else`s handouts.]

You have managed to do this until now by ripping off the scholarships and reservations for Dalits and managed to copy someone else`s resume to bolster your own. So what is your fear that the gravy train is about to come to a halt? Did you just get pink slipped by your code pimp?

Ref soysauce #43

[#42 google research, eh?
Googling seems to have rendered average people stupid and stupid people think they are smart!]

How about self-awarded titles like ``Great Intellectual``, ``Artist``, ``Father Big Man``, etc.? They seem to confer a lot of respect on otherwise worthless street thugs and lead to worship from you.

By the way, that tile ``Navalar`` - would that mean ``Tongue Wagger``?

re: Sausauce idiot`s comments
``Googling seems to have rendered average people stupid and stupid people think they are smart! ``
Now, you think you are saying something smart, which makes you stupid i guess.

You said Infosys does not do any research. Now you are saying it does not do much research. Who are you trying to fool? Now you bring a guy you claim you know in Infosys. Well, tell you what. I know the top management of Infosys. My uncle`s son is there and he knows everyone there.
``Good times won`t last for ever``.
Ha! Does it ever?
Here is an article about BPO in India. Note that it says the possiblilites are endless and the cake is huge: $ 300 billion.
Relevant passages:
1. ``Several factors pose a challenge and may work against the growth of BPO industry in India. The transaction costs of working with Indian companies are still high due to the less than optimal infrastructure in the telecommunications industry. The cultural barriers in communication between US companies and their counterparts remain. The law and order and the economic governance continue to be low and ebb.

The judicial system is strangled by backlogs and protecting patents and intellectual property rights is a nightmare. Fly-by night operations and quick income from the growth of outsourcing threaten quality of service.

Indian companies that will fit into the business model of the outsourcers have a better chance of survival. Labor productivity needs to continually increase through innovation and retraining. ``

2. ``The US economy is moving fast from information technology revolution to biotechnology revolution to nanotechnology revolution and will continue to outsource its low-end labor-intensive operations to low income countries. To capture real gains of globalization and to become world player, Indian businesses need to move away from the receiving end of outsourcing and be at the creative end, themselves outsourcing their operations to other countries. ``
Sridhar

re:#43 by soysauce
Hey, Sausauce.
What do you do if you want an info? I either go to library or now-a-days simply to the internet. Why is that so funny to you?
I guess you simply call up your ``compassionate leader`` and ``the fountain of knowledge``. Alas, i do not have such resources.
Sridhar

This BPO thing is good for India ONLY IN THE SHORT TERM. We can already see the fear it has generated in America and UK. Just as the US congress ( or is it senate ? ) banned outsourcing of all goverment contracts, all 50 states might do the same in the near future. Clearly, depending on foreign sources for economic development is not a good idea. Crying foul about protectionism is not going to help. The US politicians will do whatever they can in an election year. The bottomline here is YOU CANNOT DEPEND ON IT.

India should use this time to significantly upgrade it`s infrastructure. That not only include Roads, power, communications and water supply but also all the systems and procedures that enable the smooth flow of Goods and Services. Once these systems are in place, we can replicate the same Western example in India.

I can give an example of a ``System``. I bought a brand new 24,000 dollar car within 4 months of landing in the U.S of A. How was that possible ? Obviously my salary was not good enough to make such a purchase in 4 months... well, I had a social security number. Any potential lender can look up my SSN and find out if had the ``potential`` to pay off the money loaned to me. And the car that I bought was made by some people in a plant in kentucky. My sale employed these people. Because they were employed, they could buy stuff in their local grocery stores, Bestbuys, etc etc etc further aiding employment.

Sounds pretty simple... eh ? Obviously, until now, we have failed in implementing such simple systems and procedures. One might say that it is the duty of government to implement such things. Not necessarily...... the current buying power of the Indian middle class should be attractive enough for foreign and domestic lending institutions to implement a complete Credit system. Imagine the number of jobs this thing creates.

This is just one example of how implementing ``infrastructure development`` systems increase economic development.

The concept of economic development is pretty simple folks....i.e., trade. Meaning, I make rice, you make vegetables, and then we trade. But that can only happen if there is a nice road, which we both can easily use to get to a marketplace.

arjun_m,
Why the name calling? Why the anger? Are you what they call a code pimp? Someone who contracts at 10 - 15 bucks an hour and squeeze every bit out of your contract employees?
Which part of ``india should grab all the opportunites it can get`` went over your head?
I can understand that a code pimp like you can only think of nickel & diming for the moment, but the discussion before you arrived with the moron brigade was about what should happen not what`s happening. Go back to pak-bashing. This ain`t your cuppa.
Oh, & lay off the gujrati..

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#44 arjun_m
Commie rat? Tsk..tsk..
Too emotional, aren`t you, at the mention of low contract rates? Tata Infotech & Satyam must be eating your lunch.. Get a grip & read what i REALLY wrote.

#44 arjun_m

Come on, you surely can read. After all you read every one of Romair`s posts and quote him verbatim. Do me a favor & read my #38 to which you responded. The choice is not between $10 an hour and protesting. It`s between being satisfied with $10 an hour and working up to $100 an hour. Nobody is going to pay indian contract workers $100 an hour just yet.

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#42 google research, eh?
Googling seems to have rendered average people stupid and stupid people think they are smart!
I did say we should grab all the opportunity we can get. But as wages rise, unless we have long term plans, we can be sure the wages will start to go down again. See if you can figure that out with google..
I know about infosys because I know someone there who is near the top...At any rate, it`s true of india-based IT companies in general that they invest little in R&D. The prevalent thought is that it eats into margin and is therefore not a good idea. But the good times will not last forever and we cannot continue to live on someone else`s handouts.