Prayatna

BPO employees - what beckons?

Peter Drucker famously said,

"I never predict. I just look out the window and see what’s visible—but not yet seen."

Looking out of the window at the current call centre/back office (which I will call BPO for the sake of convenience) boom in India, I think there are a few things that are visible but not yet seen or maybe seen and ignored.

• A large number of freshly minted college graduates are getting into BPO outfits as their first jobs, many of them with science and engineering degrees too.
  
• They are all trained in basic customer support etiquette as well as in the specific areas in which they provide customer support
  
• They are all working in an environment that has proper systems and quality controls in place and sets high quality standards.  They are gaining experience in frontline customer support and an appreciation of how important customer support is to the business.
  
• Most BPO employees have little or no opportunity for more intellectually stimulating work or even upward mobility in the call centre business and their work is mostly monotonous.
  
• The BPO companies pay fresh graduates much more than any other industry/sector today
  
• Some of the BPO employees are using a short stint in the industry as a means of making money to fund their higher education and leave for higher studies as soon as they possibly can.
  
• The Indian BPO model is itself susceptible to threats over the longer term from other countries with lower cost  manpower resources.
  
• There is emerging a huge pool of BPO employees with a few years of experience, stuck with little or no growth prospects and ready to look for new pastures and this pool is only likely to grow.

What could BPO employees with a few years of experience possibly do in other areas (with appropriate training of course)? Or to put it differently, are there any possible businesses that can tap into this pool of BPO employees with a few years of experience to maximum benefit? Of course, all established businessed in India can tap into this pool to improve their customer support and satisfaction level resulting in an overall increase in the quality of service. I'm looking at totally new opportunities.

Here are a couple of ideas.

• Tech customer support firms (aiming to service needs of SMES) along the lines of the Tech 7-11s that Rajesh is proposing
  
• Firms providing support solutions to homes ranging from bill payments, repairs and maintenance on call (plumbing, electrical, carpentry etc.), home deliveries of essential items (milk, groceries, newspapers etc.) and other such services.

Both of the above would be targeting the large domestic market rather than the export markets. Are there already any businesses like these in operation (I don't know of any and would be interested to hear of any if they're already around)?

TV's limitations in presenting news and current affairs - An opportunity

Here is an idea borne out of my irritation with the presentation of news and analysis on TV, with all its limitations. The limitations are not that of the medium per se, but that of publishers' perception of the medium and of how they can generate increased revenues.

Facts and opinion are presented selectively due to

• Lack of time - time windows for presentation dictate everything. Breaks must be had at specific times and an entire program can only be 30 minutes long or 60 minutes long and only so much can be covered, with one side of the story often getting more or all of the time.
  
• Lack of research - anchors/presenters are most often not chosen for their knowledge or abilities, but for various other reasons, with a few exceptions of course. The research teams don't back the anchors/presenters well either
  
• Possible subconscious or deliberate biases/prejudices which come through not only in the views expressed by the presenter, but also in the choices made in inviting so-called experts.

Some TV channels are able to address the research and bias with diligent preparation and professionalism, but most TV channels don't seem to bother. When I see something patently untrue or foolish being passed off as expert analysis on subjects that I know something about, I really wonder about the veracity of all that is being said on subjects that I know little or nothing about.

Presentation styles themselves leave much to be desired and tilt towards the confrontational more often than not, with an attempt to entertain viewers by needling or irritating those being interviewed rather than trying to draw them out to inform and educate the viewers. Anchors/Presenters often adopt a smug , patronising, holier-than-thou attitude.

So here is the opportunity.

Create a blog that will critically review the popular TV news/analysis programs and write a commentary on all such programs over the past 24 hours. The commentary will

• highlight views that are passed off as news
  
• debunk patent untruths that are presented as facts or are left unchallenged
  
• bring out subtle prejudices and biases that come through
  
• question the premises on which opinion is proferred, if unjustified
  
• provide facts and information to bring perspective to the various issues discussed
  
• highlight inconsistencies in the views presented

This blog will essentially aim to provide viewers with a means of better understanding and appreciating what is presented on TV. The blog will also invite comments from the readers of the blog to help build a strong and participative community of readers.

So what's the business model?

First the costs. The costs are minimal - all one needs is a TV to access news/analysis programs, access to the Internet (both as a reference tool to research the various topics and also as the publishing medium) and a very very small investment to set up a and host a blog. Of course, it will require people to do the work and just one person or maybe two would be enough to get started.

Now the revenue potential. The blog itself will aim to attract a sizeable audience which can then be monetised online through a web site and an email newsletter as well. For a start, every advertiser who is advertising on the various news and analysis programs on TV can be invited to extend their advertising to the blog for an incremental cost.

The blog can be syndicated to daily newspapers (thereby enabling them to go one-up on the TV medium - wouldn't newspapers given an arm and leg for that?) to educate and inform the viewer and provide perspective and commentary on what they heard and saw a few hours ago, subtly highlighting the advantages of print and the limitations of TV in the process. A daily column like this appearing in the morning papers, dissecting and analysing last night's TV programs, has the potential to attract a huge following. Attracting advertisers and sponsors to such a newspaper column should also be very doable.

Shadowing media outlets and providing commentary and analysis of what is published in the media has been happening for a while in America. Chronwatch shadows the San Francisco Chronicle and Ratherbiased shadows Dan Rather, the CBS News Anchor. Ira Stoll was shadowing the New York Times which he felt "had grown complacent, slow and inaccurate and regularly noticed errors of fact and of logic". He started Smarter Times, which eventually led to him becoming the founding editor of the New York Sun, a daily newspaper in New York that was launched sometime in 2000.

"Desi" tool for vehicle tracking

Anand Parthasarathy in an article in The Hindu describes Bharat on Wheels (BOW), a "desi" tool to help transport operators as well as you and me keep track of our goods as they are carried across the country by road.

BOW stands for Bharat on Wheels: the company targets the 3 million goods carriers that move on Indian roads at any given time. To track these vehicles, the company makes use of STD phone booths — and a specially designed BOW card which looks like a credit card.

Fleet owners can provide a card to each driver which he will carry to the nearest tracking point, basically a designated STD booth on trunk routes, at major trucking stops and petrol bunks.

The booth operator will transfer details of the truck coded on the card together with a simple numbered message to a local telephone number using a Voice Response System. At the receiving end, a franchisee of BOW, uploads all incoming messages by email to a central hub, where it is processed and placed on a website.

Fleet operators can thus keep track of where each of their vehicles has reached. In addition the system provides the driver with access to emergency help in case of sickness, breakdown or accident.

BOW Network's Managing Director P.S. Selvaraj explains that the service would prove cost effective for fleet operators since the initial cost of each card ( Rs 1100) and the monthly service charge ( Rs 100 for local permit and Rs 300 for national permit vehicles) would work out much less than the amount that each driver spends monthly on STD calls to the head office while en route — typically around Rs 2500..

For regions where the phone service is not digital, making Voice Response systems inoperative, BOW has created a `smart card' where the local franchisee can upload the information using a card reader.

Lay customers who send their personal goods by truck are also served by the BOW system. They can purchase `trip cards' valid for one trip alone costing Rs 75 ( for 5 days) or Rs 125 ( for 10 days) and provide it to the driver. They can then track their goods on the Internet site which will reflect every message the driver logs. And how to motivate the driver to oblige? Every time he logs in at an STD booth, the driver will receive a Rs 2 token. This also allows him to participate in a quarterly draw where the prize is Rs 50,000.

This is certainly much cheaper than solutions involving the installation of GPS receivers costing $100 to $250, on each truck. Truck drivers are also reluctant to let "big brother" in the head office track their movements 24 hours a day. A good example of an attempt at an innovative solution to address a very felt need, but the logistics of setting up a network of tracking points and franchisees makes this too complicated

With the availability of mobile phones with roaming, I wonder why none of the mobile companies have come up with any solution addressing this need yet. A simple prepaid SIM with roaming enabled should do the trick. Truck drivers can be called by the head office twice or thrice a day to figure out their location and progress and a database maintained at the head office. The drivers can also call in to report any delays or problems. The cost of this will be very minimal and this could also be marketed as a value add to truck drivers by giving a certain number of outgoing calls free for them to keep in touch with their family.

Who will be the first operator to rise to this challenge? Not that it requires an operator to do much. Any trucking company can set this up themselves with a little bit of help from someone to develop their back-end database and web-based front end.

An idea for a Software Distribution Network in India

Rajesh Jain in his blog talks about the need to create a software distribution network for SMEs (Small and Medium Entreprises) in India, to make it viable to sell affordable software packages to address the needs of SMEs and wean them away from piracy or non-consumption.

Rajesh lists a bunch of requirements for a software distribution network:

• Make software available at affordable price-points to SMEs
  
• Ensure regular updates and licence control so that piracy is difficult and has few benefits
  
• Have a national network with local presence in the neighbourhood to ensure appropriate support
  
• Work with existing computer distributors and resellers to bundle a base software platform with hardware
  
• Provide a managed software infrastructure – with auto-updates, and without the need for on-site IT staff
  
• Ensure regular end-user training and education seminars on how to effectively use computers
  
• Provide a reference enterprise IT architecture for SMEs – with a starting point and an upgrade path over time
  
• Show how the IT investments can pay back via improved profitability and business growth
  
• Create demo points in neighbourhoods so SMEs can see the software
  
• Get software developers to build software on the common platform relevant for specialised verticals
  
• Generate and publicise case studies from the early adopters

Here's an idea. Start by building a network riding on engineering/technical colleges across the country. Each college becomes a distributor covering its town/city.

The benefits:

• Can quickly set up a fairly good developer pool for product development and upgrades using available student talent, with a central group providing direction (along the lines of the open-source model).
  
• A national network with local presence in the neighbourhood can quickly be set up.
  
• Colleges will provide the manpower (One class of students each semester) to support local customers
  
• Colleges have the infrastructure and resources to run regular training sessions
  
• Students are available to do all this at low cost, they work practically for free with this being part of their course work like their project or summer internship.
  
• The colleges benefit by adding value to their students and getting a share of revenues
  
• Students who graduate become evangelists for the software when they go out into the world
  
• Students learn how to work in team and provide high quality service levels for support - will increases overall quality consciousness in the country over time
  
• Students learn on the job how a business works - they not only provide support, but also market the products to potential customers and get a feel for understanding customer needs and selling to them.
  
• Can become a breeding ground for entrepreneurs - graduating students can set up businesses to continue doing the same thing as the no.of customers grows.

The challenges (not in any particular order):

• Doing a deal with multiple institutions who will each have their own view of it. No incentive for the staff in the institutions to get involved. It's more work for them, with not much more compensation.
  
• Training the students to be competent in both domain knowledge and customer relationships.
  
• Quality control issues. Service levels to customers must be consistently good in terms of both quick response and minimal downtime.
  
• Perception issues: Need to overcome customers' perceptions that students won't be good enough to provide quality support.

I think it could be made to work and is worth fleshing out in more detail. What do others think?

Leveraging the IIT Brand

According to an article in Financial Express

The Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, is providing IIT-level education to students at seven distance learning centres across Maharashtra. At the seven mini-IITs, as these centres are called, students get the same interactive education as those in the regular course. This could be nationally replicated to provide IIT-level education to a vast number of students without multiplying IITs, and in the process reduce the technology costs to the students as well as the government. Such is the potential of distance education—removing all time and place barriers to support an effective model of education in the knowledge age.

This is an excellent idea. I've been thinking for some years of the possibility of a more limited version of this idea which I will describe.

The JEE is taken by nearly 100,000 plus students each year to fill up around 2000 seats across all the IITs. There is practically little distinction in terms of merit between the top 2000 students in the JEE and the next 2000 or even the next 5000. It's just the limitation on the current no. of seats in the IITs that forces the line to be drawn at 2000. There's demand out there in the market place (backed by the afforadability to pay market rates), but no one is able to address the demand due to artificial constraints. The IITs can't scale up because they can't get any more funding from the state and don't have the means to raise the necessary capital required to fund growth, from private sources on a sustainable basis, except for the odd donation or grant. The private sector doesn't seem to be interested - except for the Birlas who set up BITS in Pilani very early on and have successfully managed to build that into a brand in itself.

Here's the proposition:

The IITs make public the list of the all those who didn't make it into the first 2000 (in effect the JEE becomes like GATE). New privately funded colleges are set up with excellent infrastructure and faculty. These new colleges will take in those students in the 2000-5000 bracket and pay a license fee to the IITs for access to the JEE list as well as affiliation to the IITs. The new colleges will follow the exact same curriculum that the IITs set and follow and prepare the students to take the same examinations as the IIT students. The examinations will be set and graded by the IIT faculty, to maintain the standards. The new private colleges will charge fees at market rates (to make ends meet) - (i.e.) there will be no subsidy from the state. A few scholarships will be made available to the deserving. Educational loans at low interest rates will also be made available, so students can fund their education and pay back over the first 5-10 years of their working lives. Like housing loans, educational loans I believe are also one of the safest (within minimal defaulters) since a fundamental need is being addressed.

The benefits (as I see it):

a. The IITs will be able to leverage their brand and generate additional revenues by doing so.
b. The output of high quality trained engineers will increase substantially at no cost to the state.
c. More students will have access to the IIT standard of education and more importantly, the IIT brand.
d. Private capital is put to productive use. Large corporate groups can set up these institutions with a one time investment with all recurring operational expenditure recouped entirely through the fees. These institutions can then serve as the captive feeder for the employment needs of the corporates.
e. All this happens on a sustainable basis - all it needs is the initial capital investment, with the RoI being postive, though not necessarily being purely in terms of a cash return.

This will need a lot more of thought and work to turn into a full-fledged proposal, but this is the broad idea. I'd welcome feedback on this.

CD-ROM Magazine launched in UK. Room for one in India?

The Sunday Times in U.K. has launched a CD-ROM product named "The Month" that will be distributed free with the print edition of the newspaper on the last Sunday of each month. The CD-ROM will offer readers prepared to insert it into their computers a huge volume of extra material, including 25,000 words of text, movie and music clips, filmed interviews, DVD offers, games previews and listings.

Here's what others in the media have said about this.

The Guardian: "At last, a genuine newspaper innovation"
BBC: "In The Month, the Sunday Times has certainly hit on a gem of an idea, but it will need some refining yet before it becomes an essential part of its already-bulky package, rather than just a gimmick"

According to another story, the The Sunday Times hopes to boost print sales, as well as open new revenue streams in the way of sponsorship and cuts on e-commerce.

BT Openworld and Sky Sports signed up as a section sponsors on the first edition, with Renault singing up for overall sponsorship of the product, well before the launch.

The jury is still out on The Sunday Times' experiment. If others in the UK hop on to the bandwagon and start publishing similar CD magazines, that will be a sure sign of the commercial success of The Sunday Times experiment.

Is there room for a CD-ROM Magazine (maybe quarterly, if not monthly) in the Indian context? Are there enough people with access to CD-ROM drives out there to justify such a product? I think so. Possible distribution options could include
- All ISP subscribers (around 2-3 million )
- All those who bought/buy new PCs (by bundling a subscription with the purchase of the 2.5 million PCs sold each year)
- Select Credit Card holders along with their statements
- Select Mobile Phone users along with their statements
- Bundled with a weekly magazine like Outlook or India Today or The Week

Video magazines have been around for a long while, but I know of no attempt at putting out a CD-ROM magazine in India so far. Does anyone else know of one? I'm not considering the freeware CDs bundled with Computer Magazines here - they're not real magazines with real content.

Which Indian publisher will be the first to experiment?