Sunday, Feb 29, 2004
Sunday, Feb 29, 2004 |
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News Analysis
THE CURRENT situation is not unfamiliar to America. After all, it had seen manufacturing jobs move out earlier. As time went by, the fast-growing service industry came to the rescue of Americans. "The problem of the U.S. is not so much BPO. It lies elsewhere. It has to discover a new wave or a frontier to drive the economy (as it happened with the automobile and technology waves in the past)," says Shiva Ramani, CEO, SlashSupport, a pure play advanced technology company. As we head inevitably towards a world village, the ability to stay globally competitive is a sine qua non for survival, says Govind Singhal, Director, Polaris Lab. When the Dotcom boom happened a few years ago, Enterprise America went on a hiring binge. When the expected business did not fructify, it had to dish out pink slips. As Mr. Ramani says, if America can spot a new frontier, the jobs will come back. Until then, the current restlessness will persist. More often than not, the difference in the salary structure is cited as the principal reason for American companies outsourcing jobs to countries such as India. Increasingly, it is beginning to dawn on them that the cost of manpower alone is not the cause — the requisite skills are simply not available in the U.S. And Enterprise America just cannot afford to wait for that to happen. Politics, which derives strength from business, will find it difficult to dictate the course of commerce. The sound and fury notwithstanding, Enterprise America will continue to outsource — as is happening now. But, India Incorporated will be well advised to look inward and focus on the quality of service. A wake-up call has already been sounded with Dell moving back to the U.S. certain high-end support functions due to difficulties in getting quality service from India. If Enterprise India does not look inwards now, it will be swept away in the cross currents of BPO politics.
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