Friday, September 23, 2005

Outsourcing - Is Pride enough?

My earlier posting on Outsourcing brought an interesting comment by Keerthi and another one by Ranganathan on spelling mistakes.

This post is to discuss the comment by Keerthi.

I liked what Keerthi wrote but am wondering about the last few lines where he writes
"naan inga phonela kai vaikkalennaanga oru american sothhule kai vaikka mudiyadhu.." which means roughly
'If the Indian Call centers don't take these calls, Americans will suffer'.

I see a lot of pride here which is welcome but, here are my points.

1) If not India, there are other countries who would like to have a slice of the outsourcing pie.
2) China is fast getting into this race and making English a part of the curriculum ( English is the main reason why these jobs don't go to China ).
3) Eastern Europe is also in the race now.
4) It won't take long for other countries to realize this and get in as well.
5) Bottom line - Rates will go down, Salaries will go down..and even jobs might land in some other country. It is too scary to imagine that situation.

Let's wake up India. Let's not live on pride alone. Competition is heating up. Let's look at the reality today and strengthen the infrastructure for outsourcing.
Let's imagine what would happen to the Indian economy if these jobs went away..rather than thinking:

'What an American would do if we didn't take these calls' !

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I aint sure Keerthi meant what u inferred in that comment

Narayanan Venkitu said...

Sathya, I agree, he might not have, but doesn't it sound like that.? I see a lot of people talk like this, whenever outsourcing and India comes up.

KRTY said...

venkittu sir, sathya sonna madhiri, i never implied it. it was just his state of mind. every call center guy think he rules US and UK.. :) Thats their mentality. I've seen this in many call center guys. Like how we hear people say, "US kaaranukku ellam arive ille.. adhan namma aalunga anga poi vela paarthu kaasu sambadhikkaraanga".. it may not be true, but thats the mind set..

BTW, I am really glad you liked my write up. :) Thanks sir.

Venky Krishnamoorthy said...

The world is flat. India should move up the scale like KPO, Life Sciences for example.

Rags said...

No matter what height we reach, we have to perform to keep that height... We need to understand that Nobody is indispensible..

Jeevan said...

If they dint give jobs to us we should be in the line of Employment exchange.

Anonymous said...

kittu mama! susi mami enga?

Jo said...

I totally agree with what you said. It's time for getting ready to the competition.

Ram Viswanathan said...

Yes, India does have the 'first mover' advantage but it needs to now 'work harder' to keep that advantage..

Narayanan, you are absolutely correct, China and East European countries are on a fast lane to catch up..

This Indian BPO boom is a 'bottoms up' phenomenon where the private entrepreneurs like Narayanamurthy & Premji have built this industry from scratch despite of Government apathy. It's time, Indian Government brought in some 'tops down' leadership to this Industry and created an 'eco system' where the BPO industry can thrive and move up in the food chain.

Yes, the world may be becoming FLAT but Govt. policies and procedures have a lot to do with keeping it FLAT.. otherwise walls will come again..

(Mis)Chief Editor said...

ya narayan....

apt post....but it will take some time for the other countries to comein......

by that time, if we concentrate and focus hard, we will be the leaders and drivers for outsourcing:-)

very happy to see such thought provoking/encouraging writings...keep it up sir:-)