One night at a call center - I

"One night at a call center" - thats the title of Chetan Bhagats new book.
"Chetan Bhagat" - BE (IIT Delhi) PGDM (IIM Ahmedabad) , Investment banker, author of "Five Point Someone"
"Five Point Someone" - A hardhitting story about grades, peer-pressure , success, love ,expectation, and achievement set in an IIT.

Now about Chetan's new book....I was expecting something straight out of an IIM (Logical ?)
But its not about an IIM. Its a story set in one of India's call centers.

Have I read this new book ? No (I did read the prologue though)
Am i gonna read it (Probably ..Yes)
Am i going to review it ? Def. NO .. this blog isn't for that.

Still remember the day, i stepped into one of these places.
For millions of Indians, this is the one way they get to earn some cash, after "just a degree"
OR a way to scrape a living and send some cash back home OR a way to party OR a place to hang around till the job/admission/interview/transfer/passport/visa/groom comes around.

Row upon row of comfy ergonomic chairs. Sleek desktops. the latest Cisco IP Phones. Banners and streamers everywhere.. (it was the boss' birthday)
I glance at my watch. 11pm.Start of a new shift.
The employees trickle in.... Guys , girls everybody.....Fun seemed high in the agenda.
An hour later , the floor was in flow.....The smokers bay was thick with smoke. Every now and then, the coffee breaks would come and go.
Eight hours, and literally thousands of phone calls later, it was time for the future of India to be packed into a fleet of SUVs and driven straight home.

It is a fact that the Call-center industry has taken off in India. This trend of [art of the greater outsourcing story.New call-centers with thousands of seats, spring up and provide sought after jobs to millions of young men and women.
However on one side these call centers are touted as an answer to India's massive unemployment problem, they also struggle with unemployment rates (almost 30% annual.) Company's spend huge resources hiring and training new recruits (theres NEVER a short supply of youngsters here)

Let me try and answer the following -
1. Why have call centers mushroomed ?
2. Why is the profession looked down upon ? (Despite the evalueserve ad)
3. Why is the attrition rate high ?
4. Is it a fad? Can one stake ones career on it?
5. Career growth in this highly labor intensive industry
6. Possible roadblocks

1. Call centers operate on the cost differential between the foreign country (generally the US) and India. In the US, call centre jobs are located generally in the mid-west. Calls are handled by Housewives, students and the retired (generally to supplement their income)
The minimum wage in the US is (I think) $3 per hour. That's 140 Indian rupees. That's Rs.11 20 a day or around 28000 a month. Call center jobs are not sought after and in a labor scarce country like the US, manning call centers is a nightmare.
The situation in India is different. A large pool of English speaking youngsters. Will to work nights for as little as INR 8000 a month.And to top that , for the masses in India, call center jobs are sought after (since it pays)
Any company which outsources calls to India gains a HUGE cost advantage. The quality of service provided by Indian call centers is comparable to the US ones (with pseudonyms and accents , quite the norm). The company also spares itself the headache of staffing and maintaining a call-center.
Also i must mention that the connectivity of India with the rest of the world has improved tremendously over the last few years. Costs however remain high on this front.

2. India is typically a society where intelligence and uniqueness are heavily valued.
Hence the craze for engineering, law, medicine, management and other "intellectual" professions has not abated even in the least. Call center employees are considered menial, because of the perception that their work does not involve any "Skill"
Further there is also the perception , that a career in a call center is for the so-called underachievers in society.Hence the bias.

More in my next post ....

The Future Of Indian Software

Hmmm...Most pundits (and managers , Software engineers and students) agree that India built up its software industry by using its most potent strength against a price-consious west -- Cheap labour.
But increasingly India's software industry has stopped clamouring about its cost-effectiveness (which everyone has come to understand, and respect) and is positioning itself on quality.
Most Indian firms routinely get CMM Level 5 certified. This is a rarity even in Silicon Valley,where Level 5 is relatively rare.
Indian software indutry has also reached scale.With TCS,Wipro and Infosys tipping 40000 employees and poised on 50000, they are really getting in there with the biggies worldwide.Mass hiring is quite the norm,with these three and companies Satyam ,Patni,IBM and Cognizant hiring incessantly to meet their huge manpower requirements.

My thoughts on the future..Purely my own..Agreements /Disagreements welcome

1.How long can India hold on to its No1 position in Software?
For the next 10-15 years, we can compete on our cost and headstart gained..However with cheaper destinations like Pakistan,Thailand,Russia and China catching up and cutting even our prices down and Our own manpower costs spiralling up (Salaries are raised 15-20% a year in an attempt by companies to keep talent and control attrition) we may not be able to ride the price wave too long...
We then focus on Quality.India is already onto this.Companies are getting CMM certified.Engineers are gaining technology degrees and Interational certifications.Processes are finetuned and quality tightened across the company.It will be long before anyone (including the Americans can beat us on this)
Finally we move up the value chain....Focus on consulting and high end services.Infosys has its consulting arm in place and most firms are taking baby steps in this direction.An Indian firm providing end-to-end solutions at high quality and at cheap prices will be a world-beater.
India's numero uno position is safe in the future (20-30 years min)


2.With scale, Can we keep up the quality standards of "Made in india" Software ?
This is a big challenge. Indian software firms have coped with the quality angle by building entire training centres which churn out an army of coders on demand for the firm (See post on Infosys training center)
With such levels of maturity,my guess is that we can

3.When is the crash of 2001 visiting again?
The burnt child dreads the fire.Weve learnt from our mistakes. The days of blind VCing and fancy Dot-Coms are over.Every company worth its name has enough money in reserve to keep its staff cooling their heels for a couple of years at least. The days of pink-slipping and benching are unlikely to happen on the 2001 scale ever again,simply because companies are more careful about hiring now.
The next crash hopefully should'nt happen.

4. Can India Companies ever do "Cutting Edge Work" ?
Indian companies still depend on testing/maintenance/application development for bulk of their revenues.Indian companies have slowly started moving into R&D and innovation but I dont see a Google,Yahoo or EBay popping out of India ,anytime soon.But we are getting there.

5. Careers in Software.
An amazing roller coaster ride. But onsite ops,sexed up salaries and rapid climbs up management are going to be tougher to get as the pyramid in every firm grows broader and broader, and competition within the firm intensifies.

6. Software cities of the future.
To ride the cost benefit, companies will follow the low cost engineers.
Current leaders -Bangalore,Delhi,Chennai,Hyderabad
Current Contenders - Mumbai,NOIDA,Kolkata,Thiruvanathapuram,Pune
The Future- Bhubhaneshwar, Trichy,Nagpur, Kochi,Mysore, Mangalore,DehraDun,
Jaipur and Lucknow

The NGO story : An inspiring story

Following is from the IIM Calcutta website -

Access the original location here
This was also covered by tehelka.com.Click here
Parivaar's website can be accessed here

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Seventy-five homeless children in Kolkata have finally found their Parivaar. They have a roof over their heads, they go to school, play cricket, celebrate birthdays. Once again, they have won their childhood back, thanks to 26-year-old Vinayak Lohani.

Four years back, Lohani was at a crossroads. One path promised a smooth drive to success and the other a bumpy ride. An engineer, Lohani was working with Infosys when he joined the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. The future looked rosy and rich, and life seemed miles away from the tragedies of social reality. But Lohani took the other path — the bumpy one. The one not many dare to tread. For months, he walked the bylanes of slums and red-light areas of the city. That journey ended in the formation of Parivaar — a shelter for the homeless and abandoned children.

Parivaar helps rehabilitate orphans, street children and children of sex workers in Kolkata. Ask Vinayak why he chose Parivaar over career after IIM Calcutta, he retorts, “Are all of us sure why we want to do a particular thing and not anything else? I wonder if it really is. Societal norms set your path and give you limited choices. Like others, I too was following what was the norm — first engineering, a one-year stint at Infosys and then management. But now, looking back, I do consider myself a misfit in the IIM environment.”

It was not an easy decision. “I was discouraged by friends and well-wishers from pursuing this idea. Some did not take me seriously. But honestly speaking, there was something in me that was impelling me to do what I wanted to do,” recalls Vinayak. And so started Parivaar.

With just three children from Chetla and Kalighat, Vinayak started the journey to fulfil his dream. “For nine months, I faced humiliation. To get the money to start off things, I took up a part-time job as a faculty member in an institute, training students for management entrance exams. It was only then when people gradually started realising that I was serious about what I wanted to do,” Vinayak recalls.

Children at Parivaar have found the special magic of this unique family. They attend formal day schools and are provided evening tutorials by teachers at the shelter.
“Parivaar is just like a family. The children attend school and come back and are guided in studies by teachers here. They are broken in small groups of 5 to 10 children each. We feel if the right environment is provided any child can achieve anything through mainstream education,” says Lohani. “We are against vocational education programmes that many advocate, which have an underlying assumption that an underprivileged child is not worthy enough for long-term opportunities and thus should learn something to get two square meals. That’s not the way things should be in an egalitarian society. Without giving opportunities one cannot evaluate abilities.”

As a part of its initiative, Parivaar has been identifying vulnerable girls from red-light areas in collaborative effort with Sanlaap and CINI Asha, NGOs working in Kolkata. For such girls, Parivaar provides an alternative through education so that they do not get sucked into prostitution and therefore can look forward to a dignified life. As a result, Parivaar is looking for donors who can support about 25 of these girls whom they are planning to admit here, through the ‘Support A Child Scheme’.

Currently, over 150 IIM alumni are enrolled as donors with Parivaar under the ‘Support A Child Scheme’; they make regular contributions. As part of the future projects, Parivaar is starting one centre each in Raichak and Kharagpur in West Bengal by January 2005. Dressed in a dhoti-kurta, Vinayak is still restless. “I have achieved my goal, but that does not mean the end of my work. I have a long way to go.”
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The NGO story : Career scope

Think of the world NGO and what comes to your mind ?
Well ,A few people who immediately spring to ,mind are Baba Amte, Mother Teresa, Arundhati Roy and Medha Patkar.

NGO workers often find themselves slotted as idealists, feminists,dreamers and rebels.
In our country, running a succesful NGO requires nerves of steel. The bereaucracy and red-tape can be stifling. The public apathy appalling and the problems themselves almost unsurmountable in size and scale.

But hats off to the NGOs who have really made a difference.
There are some NGOs who exist merely to stay in the spotloght. Their executives seen only occasionally in Page 3 dos and parties. But there are hundreds and hundreds of others who keep out of the spotlight and prefer to make a diference to our country in a tireless , efficient way.

"A career in an NGO ?" chuckled my friend."You must be f****** crazy !" He has a point. Both of us are students of one of India's most reputed and elite management schools.Both of us could walk out of here with jobs that pay the equivalent of $17000 per year (To put that in prespective...India' s percapita income was $285 last year.)

I had a point too.NGOs have come a long way and have now become as professional as most companies. And gone are the days when only socialites (with lots of money) , housewives (with lots of time), retired people (with lots of experience) and students (with lots of enthusiasm)

Walk into any well run NGO and you will find lawyers,engineers even MBAs.
And mind you ..not all of them are there for the "satisfaction" and the "happiness." NGOs have started offering competitive pay to their employees.

The international NGOs are possibly the most sought after for employment. CARE and WorldVision being cases in point. The well run Indian ones include CRY (Child relief and You.)
Careers in NGOs abound for doctors, nurses,teachers ,lawyers and engineers.
MBAs are also sought after for their management skills. But it is a sad truth that most MBAs simply do not find the field lucrative enough to join.

The biggest plus ?
After MBA, what do you do ?
Work for a bank in New York ? Crunching numbers?
Work for an Consumer firm ? Hawking Cigarettes ?
Feed the hungry , help the destitute and bring a smile to the faces of countless of your fellow countrymen..
Does the last option look lucrative to you ?
Chances are that it does...Chances are that it doesnt.
A career in an NGO does not give you an A/C office, an official car and a fat bank balance.
But it will give you a deep sense of self worth and enough money to keep yourself comfortable.

There are of course a few, who have foregone oppurtunities for personal gain to help heal the lives of others. These are the real heroes of our country who deserve to be saluted.

One such hero in my next post...


CRY can be reached here
Careers in CRY is here

It offers an insight into the oppurtunities available.I'm sure they will be an eyeopener for most of us.

Porn in the Indian Workplace II

[This continues and concludes my previous post]

Pornography in the workplace simply reflects the changing nature of sexual harassment.
There used to be a time , when India worshipped its women. Then came a time when India locked them up behind the confines of the household.

Now again we see Indian Women come out and make a mark for themselves in the community.
But is this really welcomed by the men ?
My guess is (by and large) - NO
Women , even today are restricted to entry level positions in even newer age companies...have any of us wondered why women comprise only 5% of managers while comprising 25-30% of entry level hires.
In most organizations, there is open hostility towards women who are ambitious. There is a clear belief (ironically reinforced by thousands of women every year) that a woman cannot make a career which is as long or as succesful as a man's. Marriage and childrean are often determinants of the career aspirations and ambitions of women.

Sure there are shining examples of women who have made it big in corporate india.Hats off to them...i mean....they really do deserve a standing ovation.
I'm sure everyone of them will tell you stories about how they were discriminated against in the early stages of their careers. All the ceilings they had to break and all the hurdles they faced.

My guess is that Indian men (who for all their pretensions are still unbelievably conservative at heart), are getting frustrated with all the women who are now holding their own in every profession. And Porn gives them a way to vent this frustration.
And has anyone noticed...Exposure and use of porn is highest in the knowledge industries,which also have the highest proportion of female employees.

Is this situation going to change ?
Not unless ,most of us men, start treating women as equals, and most women truly believing in themselves and be willing to stand up against such blatant discrimination. I'm 22 and I dont see this happening in my generation or the next one.

Porn in the Indian Workplace

Recently I got an mail from my ex-classmate (who happens to be working in bangalore in one of its better known software companies.)

It had a whole bunch of pics attached......"Girl pics"..Exposed breasts , genitalia et al.I wasnt surprised at all. Men will be Men. Nudity will be nudity. THe male fascination for the female body isn't about to vanish overnight.

But what surprised me is that this email had been sent to me , from my pal's "Company" or "Official" id. This id was given to him for so-called "official " use.Even more shocking.....before being forwarded to me, this email had been forwarded to a whole list of people -- people working in India's biggest s/w firms--again using company email ids.

The issue here isn't about pornography itself.Its bad,its immoral,its illegal..blah..blah...blahBut I'm not gonna discuss that. My contention is simply that,at least nudity and porn should be kept out of the workplace...

I was speaking about this , to one of my friends....He used to work in a services firm , down in chennai. He tells me that porn is common place in the Indian workplace...Stories of entire harddisks of porn being freely circulated and viewed..Pornography being downloaded (using the company's high speed connection - no doubt).... Nude women being used as screen wallpapers...are commonplace.The list is endless.

This is a time ,when women are making themselves seen in these companies...Granted..In most firms they still comprise 20%.. But I believe its high time companies took note of their responsibility to provide a decent working atmosphere from them. India's sexual harassment laws are stringent enough , and every company has a sexual harassment cell.If the laws were followed to the letter, half of us would be in jail.

Its about time,companies took a little notice of this.... They do have a responsibility towards their employees...and in anycase, it makes sense for them too..This has led to a HUGE wastage of time,money and resourses.

Where does this problem stem from ? and how do we correct this ? More in my next blog....

Infosys - On its training programmes in Mysore

INFOSYS BUILDS A REALISTIC DREAM

A true story of “Thinking Big and Achieving Bigger”From : Subir Roy in Rediff.com, June 16, 2005

[ Infosys is a Software Company, based in Bangalore, India...Its meteoric rise to becoming one of the country's largest firms and one of its most sought after employers , is an inspiration in itself and only highlights the immense inroads made by India into the world economy in the last 10 years. This article is on Infosys' training centre in Mysore, India, where thousands of college graduates are turned into some of the world's brightest software engineers ]

Infosys' top and bottom line certainly make it exceptional. But if you look a little deeper and seek what lies behind that exceptional performance you find a commitment to excellence and an ability to maintain quality even while expanding at a breathtaking pace.
If you are looking for symbols then Infosys' immediate real world performance, the sort that moves analysts, is represented by its glittering campus in Electronics City on the outskirts of Bangalore.

But if you look for a symbol of the deeper issues then you have to turn to the company's new Global Education Centre in Mysore. Infosys embodies a contradiction. It lives in the real world and is numbers driven to a fault. It seldom allows itself the luxury of extravagant thought on anything that is not deliverable in a pre-determined timeframe. But it has ideals that are among the loftiest.
The two come together in its Mysore centre.The extravagance is in its dimensions, spread over 270 acres, able to accommodate nearly 5,000 students at a time. It is the largest corporate training centre in the world.It is currently able to train 12,000 people a year, which can be taken to 15,000 when the need arises. The company is committed to spending $65 million on it.The centre has India's largest gym, arguably its best cricket field and a library facility that will be the envy of any company in the world. When the prime minister inaugurated it earlier this year he and Infosys chairman N R Narayana Murthy competed in heaping praise on each other.

But if you think Infosys let itself go on the centre you will be mistaken. It will simply train its own fresh recruits to man its global operations. It will not become a deemed university offering degrees or management capsules to outsiders, it will not take on the job, except in a token way, of training the IT leaders of emerging economies.It will not even become the core of a future Infosys which will aspire to become a global leader in technology.

Every body trains but why did Infosys give such primacy to a training centre? The answer comes in several parts. "Our industry, which is primarily based on good quality talent, has to ensure that the quality of raw material, people, is very high. So right from the beginning we have realised that good quality human resources is a strategic resource for us."And the scale? Naturally. Last year, out of 1.4 million applications, Infosys selected and offered jobs to 14,000, out of which 11,600 or so joined."One of the biggest challenge before any company is scalability. How do you scale up in terms of numbers without losing quality, productivity, response time, value system and focus on cost control.

So our Global Education Centre is a classical example of enhancing scalability."Why residential? "If we want to train very efficiently, make them efficient and effective in their work as quickly as possible, we have to create an environment where there is tremendous focus on learning, where there is an opportunity to work in a collaborative environment even beyond office hours, where there is opportunity to seek out faculty members on issues at all odd hours and make sure they learn whatever is needed quickly and efficiently."

Having set the scope and the scale, Narayana Murthy then raises the bar."My belief is that the first 14 weeks -- this is a 14-week training course -- must be the toughest. By this we can ascertain who among our new trainees can actually scale up to our expectations and who can't. IIM Ahmedabad is the same. If you can pass the first semester, the rest is easy. Once we know that these people can go through a tough yet rewarding experience, there is a lot of learning, a sense of fulfilment for the youngsters, and the job becomes easier for them."

Did Infosys seek inspiration from outside? Yes. "We have looked at several models, particularly when we started our Leadership Institute. We looked at eight models including Philips, GE, Motorola. In terms of the corporate training facility again we looked at five to six cases in different sectors of the economy."These models and the felt needs gave the final shape to the centre. "We realised we needed more and more situations where there is teamwork. Second, we needed situations where they can relate to the kind of work they will do in their job. Third, we said we should create more and more situations which will aid their thinking, rather than rote learning."These are the lessons Infosys learnt from others' and its own past experience. And from this was born the Global Education Centre and its curriculum.