Media and Ethics

It was a long awaited weekend and I preferred to stay at home. What could be better than exploring the world through my idiot box? So I turned on my TV just to come across a fairness cream commercial where in two females were being interviewed for the position of Air hostess and were compared on the basis of their complexions and amazingly fairer one got the lucrative job. I couldn’t resist brooding upon this particular episode, however rather than straining my grey cells I preferred to change the channel in search of a better program and to my amazement I came across another commercial where in an old man was telling his friend about his son who was being showered with innumerable job offers just because his son completed a short term computer course from Not-So- very-Popular computer institute.

Lots of questions came up to my mind-Is it right to portray that being just fair can fetch you a job? Would it be justified to tempt youngsters to pursue short term courses and demean the significance of comprehensive educational programmes designed after extensive research. Is it all about making money or does Media have moral responsibility as well. Aren’t they deviating from their sole objective with which Media was formed i.e. revealing Truth in front of Public. And all this for just few coins. People are being misled not only by such fairness cream commercials rather they are also being forced to believe that just being fair or doing module IT courses could fetch them a Glam job. We are being so inhumane that we are not only forgetting about human values and focusing on superficial stuff rather we are forcing our young generation to do the same. The creators of such commercials fail to realise the impact which such promotions lays on the people who are not fair complexioned and leaves them with a permanent impression that their dull complexion is a curse and the biggest hurdle in their life. And imagine the fate of a student who faces the harsh reality where there is no job for him and all his dreams are being shattered and then he realizes that all those Glam Jobs requires much more than a pretty complexion and short term module courses. On top of that just think of those people in small town for whom advertisements are the reflections of Metropolitan cities and what if they imbibe these advertisements thinking that such institutes might fetch their son/daughter a good job dumping their hard earned money as a fees for the course of such institutes just to realise that after an year or two their child would come back to them with Nothing.
Such commercials not only mislead students by sending a signal that they should take a shorter path rather they are playing with innocent lives. This also demeans the significant researches and their executors who are behind the design of comprehensive course curriculums and recruitment processes. This kind of promotion fails to realise that until and unless a person understands the significance of such processes and the hard work behind them, he won’t understand the amount of input required to get the desired output. This reminds me of an excellent example of Plug and socket. Wherein for every plug there is a socket and even slightest mismatch doesn’t make the Right Fit. Here people are plugs and organizations are sockets and most of us want to fit into a good socket (organizations) irrespective of the match of the socket. Rather one should try to be the right Plug and if the socket doesn’t matches then either leave the socket or upgrade to match the socket. Be the right match and find the Right match.
In fact Media should use its immense power and undeterred access to reach out to millions of people to encourage them in abolishing these material practices. It’s high time and we all as a single entity should realize that it’s time to lay a solid foundation for our next generations and that can be done by showing the right path to them rather than misleading them.

India – An Outsourcing Destination

BPO-One of the most popular terms we frequently come across nowadays. What is a BPO; just a C@ll Center or something beyond that. Before we strain our Grey cells so as to understand this term, let’s get back to another term Off-shoring. Off-shoring is a process wherein companies relocate some of their goods/services to another location preferably in other countries so as to achieve global competitiveness and to be much more efficient.
Indian Service sector has been one of the major contributors in the growth of Indian Economy & Indian GDP. For instance India's Service Sector has grown @ 8.1% in the year 1993 - 2003 as compared to 6.1% in the year 1983 - 1993. It is this India's service sector which has led to the emergence of BPO in India which is now growing leaps and bounds. Statistics reveal that in 2003 Indian KPO sector had revenues of 0.72 billion which accounted for 56% of Global KPO and it is estimated to rise to 71% of Global KPO by 2010.

Now the Question arises "Why India ?" Why does Global Players like Microsoft, American Express, Citibank and so on.. chose India when there are other developing economies like Malaysia, Singapore and countries with Huge market like China.
Lets have a glimpse of some of the major factors that attracted Major Global players to India:

• Highly skilled English speaking workforce: India boasts of around 3 million Graduates every year and around 7million English Speaking people.


• Huge Cost Advantage: Indian BPO salaries are almost 40% of US salaries.


• Secure Data Management Systems: India has a very efficient and secure data management systems so its Clients can be sure of the safeguard of their confidential data.


• Excellent Telecom Infrastructure: Fast and clear communication could be had by amazing Telecom infrastructure which India can proudly boast of.


• Maintenance of High Quality Standards: Despite huge attrition rates, Indian BPO sector has been able to consistently maintain very high quality standards due to which India has been able to deliver results within due course of time and that too at huge profits.


• Government Support: Indian Government understands the significance of BPO sector in India and thus has been really liberal in its policies to allow major foreign companies to outsource their products and services within India.


• Time Difference: Long time difference gives Indian BPO sector an added advantage as it gives us enough feedback time which helps us in performing much better.
  As stated earlier, Indian BPO has been performing exceptionally well. Genpact ranked as No.1 BPO started off in 1998 with a workforce of mere 4 employees in Bangalore needs no introduction today in BPO sector which has been able to force even major US players like Convergys to 2nd position since long. Another excellent instance is WNS , the only INDIAN BPO to be listed in NASSCOM. Now the question arises What Next?

Undoubtedly, Indian BPO is doing fairly well, however, one major limitation of BPO's in India was that they were confined to IT or ITES(IT Enabled Services) only. What about the other sectors which also had huge demand for outsourcing like Investment, Market Research, Research Investment, Legal Services and many more.
Another major disadvantage which later came into picture was that BPO sector which was growing at a very fast pace required only Process knowledge by its employees rather than Domain knowledge. Till now this factor proved to be an advantage as it didn’t require much training sessions and within few months could have a seasoned BPO employee who could contribute to the organization fairly well. However, What's easy to HIT is easy to MISS, so when demand increased various other sectors also required indian Services, so KPO(Knowledge Process Outsourcing) came into play.

KPO unlike BPO required more of Domain Knowledge rather than just Process knowledge. With the innovations almost at the saturation level in BPO sector, KPO has a cutting edge over BPO in the fact that it could cater to wide range of services which is not confined to IT- ITES sector rather it provided enough scope for Domain knowledge and now understanding of the entire project became much more important which helped in overall growth of the sector. KPO also holds large potential for Subject Matter Experts especially in the fields of Investment Banking and Research Investment sectors.

Indian KPO is at boom and the scenario we are encountering now enables us to be in a better position to visualise the bright future of Indian Economy, and this will soon give birth to a new sector LPO(Legal Process Outsourcing). So we can say that it’s just the beginning and there's a long way to go. It won’t be wrong to say that Indian potential gave birth to some new sectors like LPO which were not even in the making, this indicates the level of potential India has and also paves a path for a new beginning.

It is a predicament to move further with the opportunities like LPO along with the present challenges this sector is facing like High Attrition Rates, Public unawareness for this sector which leads to wrong perceptions and so on. However, the results that India has seen within past few years from this sector are enough to cope with these challenges so we can come out with new solutions and can claim to be one of the best Outsourcing Destinations to which world can look up to.