Struggle: An ongoing process

Today was a warm day and I was feeling good after so many days of unbearable heat and thought of settling my home a bit so I started off by organising my educational as well as employment certificates which though not many, are in every way important to me not only because of their value in my career,however, also because they always remind me of two things –one my struggle to achieve them and secondly the extent of effort I did not put which I could have so as to have better grades in those papers. While organising the papers I got hold of the Experience certificate of my first job and all those memories flashed through my mind as to how I got selected for my first job and even then how unsatisfied I was since it was not a very good job on the universal scale so I kept working for better opportunities and I hopped like anything to an average of changing my job within an year. Infact this reminds me 0f a question during my interview where I was asked ,”Why should we hire you as you change jobs like anything?” and I don’t know where I got the courage of backfiring the question to the interviewer and I told him that I don’t think there is anything wrong in this and infact you would do the same in case you get a better opportunity. I really have no clue as to what that person liked in me and finally offered me that job.

Now after 4 years I have landed into a so called respectable job which I always wanted and now everything seems fine as I am earning fairly well and working with a brand name. Life seems cool and is not a roller coaster ride anymore, however, sometimes I get reminded of my earlier days where I used to feel bad as to not having good grades in my degree and then the fight to get a good job began which was not easier as on one side I was being rejected by every employer and on the other hand I had to face the expressions of my family who was very supportive ,however, I could sense the disappointment in their eyes. No matter I was fortunate enough to have a supportive family not only emotionally however financially too but then as a young man I used to feel worse for not being able to grab a small job even so that I could at least satisfy my conscience that I am doing something on my own. Though there have been so many ups and downs,however, one best thing about that time was my struggle which kept me happy that am moving towards the next step and this one thing is missing nowadays. The big question in front of me is WHAT NEXT? How to keep this fight and struggle ongoing even now when I don’t have a visible reason like earlier where my sole motive of the struggle was the mere survival and thus it was inevitable.Now what is one thing that can keep me moving and still can make me happy.Is it the time to press the RESTART button in my life? Another question which comes to my mind is that how many times we would like to restart our life as this situation would arise in many phases of life so the answer lies in the fact that whenever there is a saturation then its time to create a deliberate need for struggle which in turn means creating self fabricated challenges so as to test oneself which would keep you going and will always give a contented feel on achieving those challenges. Well now the point is how to create those challenges- one way is to look for different avenues in your life which might mean to move out of your present role and this always seems easy than it actually is due to the human tendency of believing that something else would be better- as its aptly said that the grass is always greener on the other side. On the contrary, second best thing is to make sure that we are improving on day to day basis so that we excel in our pre-designated jobs and we try to look for the ways as to how can one improve in the environment we are into and in this way the charm to enjoy that job would always be there and in this way one would always feel happy.

I wonder that is why even in computers there is Reset button, there is even Power button , however, there is no pause button as it follows the basic law of nature- and that is just to keep moving.

Some one has aptly said “Zindagi har pal ek ladayii hai isse har saaans ladna padega, kyunki jab tak zindagi hai tab tak sangharsh hai”

Latent Legacy

Nowadays I am reading a book. Infact it would be unfair to call it just a book rather it is a precious gift by the author of an excellent piece of writing to the forthcoming generations. Discovery of India, thats the name of the book and am sure by now many of you must have guessed the name of the author, none other than our first Prime Minister The Jawaharlal Nehru. Though I have still been able to finish just the first half of the book, however, for me this is enough to appreciate the knowledge of this man and am really thankful to him for sharing such an excellent piece of information with the coming generations. This book enlightens us about what India was before it was ruled by Turks, Mughals and Britishers. It throws light on our religion and its origin (not many of us would be knowing that Hindu word is derived from a tribe called H-sintu), it tells us that India is not only about Mughals, Gandhi, Revolt of 1857 rather it thrills us with the fact that Indian history dates back to Turkish invasion and also tells us what India was even before that.
I couldn’t help brooding over the fact that such books have been written by Indians and it’s true that not many of us know about it. I was shocked to read the amazing facts mentioned in this book and this came as news to me. I didn’t know that the leaders of India have left such a great legacy for us.

Our newspapers are filled with communal riots, news channels are occupied with religious rivalry. We talk about being a victim of western culture and Outsourcing industry spoiling our so called INDIAN CULTURE. We call ourselves religious and we perform so many rituals without knowing the logic behind most of them. We are Hindus, Muslims, and all, except Indian, this might sound boring and reiterating to some of us however, it is appalling to realize that our culture is not known to us. Our dresses, food, traditional superstitions decide our culture. If a girl in our family is dressed in a western outfit and refuses to follow the old traditional ways which our ancestors have been following then she is being labelled as a rebellion or uncultured and vice versa. Do we really know our culture? The fact is that around me there are many ignorant people like me who do not have the slightest idea of our culture. This book compelled me to believe that we are still too narrow minded and the reason I believe is lack of knowledge and people are not aware what they belong to. If such valuable source of information is easily available then how come we are still ignorant? Mr. Nehru took the pain of compiling the Indian history into a book so that we can take advantage of it and can come to know what real India was and he might have a vision that making this information available to his next generations would help us in building a better India in future. On the contrary, we hardly know about our history, let go of the fact of using this history for a better future and this is prevelant in our day to day lives.

Yesterday I was watching a popular show in which kids are supposed to perform as stand up comedians. I believe they are given written scripts and are judged as per performance. The age range is between 6-13 years of age. Initially, I was impressed by the amazing performance of those kids and some of them were so young that its almost impossible to believe that a child of such an age can perform so brilliantly. In some instances, these innocent children were given some vulgar scripts, no doubt they did their job well, however, is it right to expose these innocent children to such information. No doubt they would be successful and their success would be attributed to their talent and then the endless journey of running after money would begin and their precious childhood would be spent in earning money. Is this all so important? Aren’t we taking them away from their own culture and most importantly from their own themselves? Is it really their own fault? Then one fine day some so called religious people would raise their voices on banning Pub culture, celebrating Valentine’s day and would blabber on news channels that youngsters are being westernized and they don’t know about our culture.How can we expect them to understand their legacies when we ourselves are forcing them towards materialistic temptations. Are we really doing our duties? Are we really giving our children what they are supposed to inherit or are we using them as a tool to fulfil our own wishes which we could not achieve in our lifetimes. Why can’t we give them their own life and stop pushing them towards money? It’s high time we must understand that there is lot more beyond money and success is about achieving our own dreams and to satisfy ourselves rather than mere money.
Imagine what our forthcoming generations will leave for their next generations when they themselves won’t have the slightest clue of their own country and their culture. How will they face their next generations when they would have no legacy to leave for their coming generations. And such a big loss is attributed to neither them nor their children rather its we people of today, who would be responsible for such a big loss. We are forgetting that this is not a loss of lifetime , rather its loss of the coming generations and then we would really be a nation without any legacy, without any history.

I strongly feel that we should take some steps to make people around ourselves aware of the legacy which our ancestors have left for us so that we can use this immense knowledge pool. We should let go our next generations to find their own path rather than forcing our own traditions which itself is not known to us in the right context. I am sure by doing so we could lay the right foundation for a better future and then we would be able to think as True Indians.

Let’s try to understand what a true Indian is and let us join hands in spreading this knowledge.

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.