Recently I was watching a program on TV about the response in England to the recent shift of a large number of call center (BPO) jobs to India. During the program they asked an ex-employee of Norwich Union (who shifted 2500 call center jobs to India) how he felt after loosing his job to an Indian call center.
He replied (rather calmly) 'Indians are In and I am Out, that's the way the world works'.
This, I found to be, a stunning acceptance of the new world order. The BPO business is firmly shifting east-wards. But again and again we are forced to question the hand that feeds us. Debates still rage on about the BPO industry (and its respectable sister the KPO / LPO industry) and how good/bad is it for people working in it.
Companies like 'e-serve' with their 'ad-campaigns' do try and throw a positive light on working the graveyard shift. But I wonder again what would happen if the call center business was to start leaving India. What will happen to those people who have spent their formative years working into the wee hours of the night serving people half-way across the world.
Is the BPO industry also creating a generation of people who to make money have sacrificed their future?
What is the use of such growth if it is not self-sustaining?
What use is this growth if to achieve it one has to sacrifice the well being of our youth?
Speaking with a friend of mine who used to work for Norwich Union in India further opened my eyes. People do hate the fact that Indians are taking away their jobs. At the same time they enjoy the savings that they get because their insurance provider has outsourced operations.
We come back to the age old question of whether being a source of cheap labour is a good thing or bad. Should we put a positive spin on things like the e-serve people are trying?
Back home this new found business opportunity (i.e. BPO/KPO/LPO) are not seen in a positive light. I think BPOs etc. are respectable lines of work. Any form of work in which you can earn money without doing anything illegal is perfectly ok and respectable for me.
But looking at the intensity of the ad-campaing made me think that the Indian BPOs are not only having a tough time finding acceptance among people outside India, but within India as well.
Case in point being that if you are a call center employee you would find it difficult to get a good marriage proposal. Most people just wouldnt want to live with someone who works at night. Other factors like money and type of work also influence people a lot.
Many people still react negatively if they know you are working at a call center.
So for the call center people it seems they are trapped between a society that doesnt give them the true respect that they deserve (as the bringers of new-found wealth) and often difficult clients who blame them for taking away their jobs.
5 comments:
More or less the problem is that, BPO business is based on - cheap labour. Not on specialised skills.
Which makes it highlt unstable. Hence people still are sceptical of industry and hence all the negativity.
However, KPOs and LPOs are still seen in positive light, because:
1. Higher up in the value chain.
2. Special skills may not necessarily, be available elsewhwere.
3. Salaries of Lawyers and Business Researchers in US/UK are way way beyond the current salaries in India. So cost effectiveness will remain for longer time compared to BPO industry.
4. Last but not the least - DAY SHIFTS.
The main problem is that if you are outsourcing any process of a company.. the people involved in those processes will loose their jobs. So as long as process outsourcing is being done.. it will be seen in a negative light in the home countries.
As far as India is concerned the points you raise:
1. Higher up in the value chain.
I agree because KPO/LPO require technical knowledge in the field of work.
2. Special skills may not necessarily, be available elsewhwere.
I disagree because in the end like you say in Point 3 cost is the main factor... the bottom line for any company.
4. Last but not the least - DAY SHIFTS
Not really.. in any job which involves interacting regularly with people who are living in a different time zone at their convenience can never be all day shifts.
Plus in India most people wouldnt know a KPO from a BPO, and in some cases KPO is much worse because the nature of the job is highly technical and more responsibilities are placed on the people involved.
regarding point 2&3 other countries may offer cost effectiveness - but may lack the specialised skills required or may not be as good.
It is not always about the bottomlines, sometimes quality of work also matters.
See the conflict between quality and profit is a very old one. And till now history has shown that companies seem to lean that much more towards profit rather than quality as long as the basic regulations are met.
Humans by nature are short sighted and not to mention 'greedy'; often the latter is exposed through the former. KPO, BPO, call it any name, it is some 'smarty pant' thinking and driving this capitalist economy, and such smarty pants can be found anywhere, in US, UK, India, literally anywhere. The way job market works, I can draw some parallels from the economics of the world. The whole idea of a good economy is to promote consumerism which they believe is good for some reason, for example it shall keep the money in ciruclation, which has two key benefits:
-> Equitable distribution of money
-> Competitivenes, and creation of more jobs
and some drawbacks
-> 'exploitation' of the less educated by smarty pants
-> Selfishness and individuality taking precedence over 'higher' values in life
BPO, KPO any goddam job going to east is a way to expand the horizon and help the capitalist achieve their goal. The society in east becomes materialistic, and above all has the purchasing power which will help keep the money in circulation and ...this is a big question...who benefits from this money circulation. Few other goddam capitalists i.e. global brands.
Let me digress a little here. State of a body always carries a inertia and changes are slow and painful. Who said exercising / running on a treadmill would ever be easy, building that perfectly appealing body would be easy. The process is very painful, but one should have a vision, a long sighted vision of beautiful things that would come as a result of the effort put in now.
Coming back to east, I must say that a big chunk of responsibilty lies in the hands of the 'government' to manage the changes that are happening due to influx of BPO, KPO etc goddam jobs.
I am sure they as final arbitrator get huge chunks of money, in terms of cash reserve in their Banks, or in terms of tax paid by the companies. What my point is that this money could be used to create a just and social governance system, not only in terms of addressing current needs of subjects, but also managing the societal acceptance of such jobs by educating the mass.
Last but not the least, use the money to provide a culture of entrepreneurship (forget the bollywood for a change) so as to create more home grown smarty pants. This may sound contradictory as these smarty pants will kick of another chain of exploitation but sorry to say I am a proponent of capitalist system, and these smarty pants are required to drive the system. All I care about is an equitable distribution of smarty pants across the globe so as to achieve 'REAL COMPETITIVENESS', and 'REAL EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION' of money and goodwill.
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