Bharat, the newest playground for BPOs

Rural India is grabbing a big share of the BPO market which, research firm Gartner says, will expand 23.2% to touch $1.4 billion this year



You might have never heard of Amargol, Mallasamudram, Teekli, Aklimpur, Daari, Chirawa, Manjakkudi and Kaup. Locating them on the India map would probably require a microscope. Nonetheless, these tiny hamlets in the interiors of Rajasthan, Karnataka, Haryana and Tamil Nadu are becoming the newest hubs for business process outsourcing (BPO) companies.
Not only are BPOs finding good business opportunities in these villages, but the jobs they are generating are of immense value for the locals, who otherwise would have had to squeeze themselves into cities.
Take Rekha Verma. The young woman from Pilani in Rajasthan works as a team leader in the BPO unit of HarVa, a rural organisation, from 7 in the morning to mid-afternoon. Her work focuses on data entry and handling calls, fetching her `7,000-8,000 per month. Despite her graduation, her family would not have allowed her to go outside of Pilani and seek work.
"My parents allowed only because the office is within Pilani, about 4 km from home and has an all-women environment. There are no proper jobs for women in Pilani and hence most stay at home. I have been very lucky," says Verma, who has been with the BPO since 2009, adding she has become independent and confident.
On the other hand, the money Sreedevi Meduri earns after working 9-5 in a BPO near Tirupati, handling customer calls, helps in supporting her family of five, where she is the only breadwinner. "My siblings are studying while my father is a retired military man. So my income is a big boon for my family. Moreover since the job is close by, I don't have to travel much," says Meduri, who has been working with the BPO of HDFC Bank since 10 months.
"The rural youth, who come from families which are into weaving, farming, cattle rearing and carpentry, are equally talent. It's just that they don't get the exposure of city youth. So creating jobs there would not just tap their potential, but also gives us a new pool of talent," says A Rajan, group head, HDFC Bank.
On the other hand, rural BPOs mean less costs, compared to their urban counterparts.
There are no large food courts and transportation facilities; unlike urban BPOs, says Saloni Malhotra, founder and CEO of DesiCrew Solutions, a rural BPO incubated by IIT Madras.
Moreover, the realty and salary costs are lower. Average salaries in rural BPOs range `4,000-8,000 per month, comparatively lower than in cities.
"Also the attrition is in single digits. Our employees stay for at least 6-7 years," says Swapna Mishra, assistant VP, Drishtee, a social enterprise.
In metros, attrition ranges 25-35% annually.
"With employees displaying higher retention, operating in small towns translates to low cost of training and hiring," says Sanjay Venkataraman, executive VP & head, Asia business unit, Firstsource.
In the interiors, BPOs are scouting for people with basic education to those with graduation and post graduation like Meduri who has the dual degrees of M.Sc and B.Ed.
"Ours is a women-only BPO and we employ even those who are class eight pass," says Ajay Chaturvedi, founder and chairman of HarVa.
According to Malhotra, the employee base is a mix of graduates, MBAs and MCAs.
While Bangalore-based NextWealth Entrepreneurs even has engineers at its rural BPOs, according to Mythily Ramesh, CEO and co-founder.
Experts say the nature of jobs undertaken in a rural BPO ranges from data entry to backend processing, content creation to coding and billing.
The BPOs boast of clients such as insurance firms, farming firms, media and internet companies.
"We are also trying to get legal and analytical work related projects as our employees are talented. The work generally goes on in English, Hindi and vernacular languages," says Ramesh.
Like BPOs elsewhere, those in the interiors also engage in extensive training of new recruits. Wipro BPO which recently started a rural centre, is providing training which is standardised across all centres irrespective of their locations, says Manish Dugar, senior VP & global head.
DesiCrew's Malhotra says they have a 3-month programme called D-Touch to train recruits in English, computers, personality as well as dealing with customers and clients.
HDFC Bank's Rajan says they train employees for about 4-5 months in banking processes as well as computers. "Many are not familiar with the keyboard. So the training is from scratch."
Verma says she received a 15-day training on typing, email, internet, excel, sending files, and communication.
However, despite all the positives, rural BPOs are a challenging proposition with several bottlenecks. Firstly, there are infrastructure roadblocks in the hinterlands like no proper telecom connectivity, roads, etc, says Dugar. "We had to set up the technology there, ensure broadband connectivity, install generators to take care of power failures, as well as move trainers from cities to train the staff," says Rajan.
So though these BPOs might be saving on people costs, they have to make immense investment in infrastructure.
The second concern is getting clients. Drishtee's Mishra says gaining client confidence is a tough task. "We have to convince them about our people. We started by offloading our own work to the BPO and then started roping in clients," she says adding that only two years after the BPO started did they manage to get their first client.
Concerns notwithstanding, firms are gung-ho about the potential.
Anantha Radhakrishnan, VP and head, Infosys BPO, which is currently partnering with rural BPOs, says in future they will consider rural BPOs and see how the model works.

Some simple puzzles

---

Here are some simple puzzles and jokes which I like!

First, a joke: A foreman was in charge of a building site, and he was convinced that one of the workman was stealing material from the site. Every day, the workman wheeled a wheelbarrow out of the site with some sacking in it. Every day, the foreman carefully searched the barrow, and the man, but could find nothing. Finally, the building work was over, and they left the site. Later on, the foreman met the workman, and they chatted about old times. The foreman ended up by saying, "Look, I know you were stealing something! It's sending me mad. I won't do anything about it, but please tell me what it was!"

---

A puzzle: A lorry (or truck) was got itself jammed underneath a bridge. It can't manage to get itself out again. What should the driver do?

---

Now for a paradox: If you can only answer Yes or No, is No the answer to this question?

---

Some 'sucker' puzzles

These should be easy to work out, but for some reason, people give the wrong answer.

A bat and ball cost £1.10 and the difference between them is £1. How much does each cost? Click to find the

Lily pads on a lake double their area each day. They cover the lake in 48 days. How long do they take to cover half the lake? Click to find the

It takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets. How long does it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? Click to find the

As a further comment on the last problem, sometimes at work managers put more people on a project to get it finished quicker. We used to say (under our breath) "Make a baby in one month. Use nine women if necessary."

---

An old, old puzzle

This one is from my childhood:

Think of a number. Add 5 Multiply by 2 Subtract 4 Divide by 2 Take away the number that you first thought of The answer is always 3.

Click to find

---

Please note the below points while preparing for ISTQB Advanced Test Analyst or Advanced Test Manager

1. Foundation level basics concept should be clear. Even though very few direct question come in the exam. Knowing the basics help a lot

2. I found the Advanced Level books by Rex Black a big dud. hardly 10 Marks came from them. The book talk about approaches for testing assuming already know about.
    My Advice don't rely on them at all. Complete at least two books on Advanced level before appearing for the exam

3. Glossary and Syllabus help you ideally to score 10-15 marks as couple of questions are direct. Hence don't forget to read them.

4. The Difficulty level of the questions are comparable to K3 questions asked in the foundation level. Hence advice you not be over-confident just because you scored good marks in  
    foundation level.

5. Advanced Level involve more practical approach to testing, hence you experience in testing help you partially to answer the questions. Possibly as high as 40 Marks in the exam

6. If feasible join an Institute which offers the course. It will definitely helps you. If based in Bangalore, I would suggest to check about Qspiders training institute.

In addition to the below guidance for ISTQB Preparation for Advanced level.
Please note almost all the questions are scenario based, It is extremely difficult to recall.
The Most Important aspect of Advanced Level is Understanding the basics (Foundation level), Your Work experience (Many scenario are directly linked to the day to day challenges faced and how you resolve them)

Further,  I would suggest you to read the below books
1. Advanced Level Test Manager /Test Analyst by Rex Black
2. Guide to Advanced Software Testing by Anne Mette Jonassen Hass
3. The Software Test Engineer's Handbook: A Study Guide for the ISTQB Test Analyst and Technical Analyst Advanced Level Certificates by Graham Bath & Judy McKay

where do i find mock test for istqb

Bonding over work

They aren't best friends nor are they just colleagues — office spouses in the city are convinced that their's is a 'no holds barred, easygoing' relationship



When in need, I'm just a ping away'," recollects Neha Bansal, a 29-year-old call centre employee, adding, "And I took him literally — kept pinging him whenever my husband and I fought, when I missed my parents in Delhi, when I needed a quick smoke break." In a year, Neha's dependence on her colleague Ramesh and vice versa was such that every little dilemma, joy, sorrow, occasion they wanted to share with each other.
Neha and Ramesh weren't childhood friends, relatives or simply colleagues — over time, they had become, what is termed, office spouse to each other. Long working hours seem to be primarily the main reason for such a relationship to be forged, add to that the fact that with couples working, they hardly get much time with each other, quality time being ruled out almost. Consultant psychiatrist Dr B Kapur explains, "Such cases are on the rise not just in Bangalore but all over the world. What starts of as friendly banter, becomes good buddies and from there to emotional dependence. Often, such relationships move from being Platonic to culminating in physical intimacy and it can get quite messy at times."
Strangely, office spouses don't start off with anything physical in mind — it's just a friendly banter initially which could eventually lead to complete dependence on the colleague of an opposite sex. "There's no way I could manage to be in the same company for three years without Abhijith," states 31-year-old Rukmini S, adding, "Work-related stress is at an all-time high and both of us are on the same project. He's my sounding board." Of course, Rukmini's fiance, who is in the merchant navy, knows Abhijith well and are good friends too. "He's on my speed dial - both at work and in life," she says. Dr Kapur informs that office spouses, like real life spouses, have their bitter-sweet moments. "They have misunderstandings, there are fights and make ups, they want to be constantly updated about each other's whereabouts and the like," he states.
In times when keeping in touch is less than a finger tip away, office spouses sometimes spends half the day together (not literally) in the same work place. Akshay Singh of Jaipur, who has been in the city for the last five years, can't think of a day in office without Shalini. "No, we aren't romantically or even physically involved but she's been there for me ever since I joined this office. We aren't even on the same floor or project but lunch and smoke breaks are together. We are in touch constantly through the Intranet," he states. Would he call her his best friend then? "No, I don't think so but then I can't do without her either — it's this strange dependence which we have managed to restrict to work. We generally don't meet on weekends," he informs.

From left: Jayaram Srinivasan, Sreeram P and Ravi Mandayam

Former SAP troika brings technology to the farm


Career with multinational companies entails endless travel, racing for competitive positions and meeting spine-chilling deadlines.
Sreeram P, Ravi Mandayam and Jayaram Srinivasan, after years of experiencing the glamour and grind that go hand in hand with a corporate role, decided to change track and channelise their expertise to solve problems occurring frequently in agriculture.
Extensive travel across the country while implementing SAP solutions in the area of supply chain for food companies had exposed the trio to the issues faced by people working in the farming sector.
They realised that agriculture and businesses associated with it were subjected to an array of problems due to the unpredictability of weather, which resulted in fluctuating prices and so on. Moreover, technology adoption in agriculture, unlike other sectors, was limited.
The three techies, who were working with SAP Labs India, felt they could use their combined experience of 50 years in business and product development to implement solutions for local companies engaged in agri business.
"People in rural areas and those engaged in various roles in the agriculture supply chain need technology the most. So we decided to create solutions that can help in procurement, manage large supplier bases and reduce transportation and inventory costs, among others," says Srinivasan, who has 20 years of experience in developing business applications and worked with SAP as vice-president (product development) for supply chain management solutions before taking the entrepreneurial leap.
Food industry estimates suggest that in another 40 years, farmers across the world will have to produce more food that they have in the past 10,000 years combined to feed the ballooning population.
"To produce more food, increase sales and maximise returns, technology adoption is necessary. Large businesses have gained from adoption of technology but smaller players are yet to experience the benefits. Thus we wanted to leverage this opportunity existing in the small and medium enterprises by bringing out software products," says Sreeram, who worked with SAP as vice president, business development.
The two, along with friend and colleague Mandayam, who worked as vice-president technology development with SAP, quit their positions to start their venture, FrontalRain Technologies in Bangalore last November.
The firm has delivered software solutions in supply chain to customers in Karnal in Haryana and Karnataka.
"Our Karnal customer is a rice mill, Saifco group, which manages the procurement of 70,000 tonne of paddy rice from mandis, and its automated plant for producing basmati rice with the help of software from us," says Sreeram.
In Karnataka, an exporter of organic produce, Phalada Agro Research Foundation, uses software from FrontalRain to manage food safety, quality and ensure compliance for global standards.
Agriculture is a challenging sector to work in, says Srinivasan. "To understand the issues confronting the sector, we have to go to the grassroots level, in remote areas, face language barriers," he says.

Puzzles

1. Of cats and mice.
If 5 cats can catch 5 mice in 5 minutes, how many cats are
required to catch 100 mice in 100 minutes?

Answer - Only 5, of course (unless they get tired before the job is
done).

The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) has scored consistently high in this year survey. Not only has it retained its place in the overall top ten rankings with an eighth position (advancing one level higher as compared to last year's survey) but it is also topping the entire list when it comes to international exposure. IIPM also features in the top twelve list across the remaining parameters when it comes to curriculum (11th position), intellectual impact (9th position), image of the institute (6th position), placement (11th position), industry interaction (6th position), infrastructure (8th position) and the potential to network (12th position).

IIPM has so far claimed the superiority of its Entrepreneur-ship program neither by the size of its campus, nor by the entry level salary of its pass-outs, but by its qualitatively superior and intellectually stimulating academic program. The IIPM course is a 22 month, 1944 hour course which includes in depth studies of national economic processes and ways to regulate its parameters to achieve higher growth rate of GDP ensuring higher growth of market segments within the national economy as well as higher growth of income of all sections of the people, including those who are below the poverty line.
IIPM's Entrepreneurship program also develops certain entrepreneurial qualities in program participants. These helps to remove aversion to calculated risk taking, imbued with ambition beyond normal career growth. Personal ambition in tune with social vision makes an entrepreneur reach out beyond boundaries again and again. Work remains no work, but hobby. Failures are looked upon as inevitable intermediate stages to success.
The IIPM programme further includes a compulsory specialisation in Marketing- wherein all the 20 plus papers of Marketing are compulsory for all students. Additionally students chose another elective like Finance or H.R. etc. This stems from the firm conviction that IIPM holds that business is marketing.

What perhaps is the most difficult part of the IIPM progaramme to be explained in words is the tremendous change in personality and life on the whole the IIPM course brings about thanks to its special focus on Executive Communication which is a 4 credit per trimester course running throughout the course duration. As a part of this course students typically have to participate compulsorily in more than 40 competitive debates and extempores under the eagle eyes of IIPMs world-class communication faculty members. The end result is a supremely confident and extremely smart personality which can speak from any public platform fearlessly.
IIPM also offers a unique Global Opportunity and Threat Analysis (GOTA) program, through which students are taken abroad for a period of 10-20 days, wherein the students get to attend lecture sessions at leading academic institutions and organisations like World Trade Organisation, United Nations, World Bank, Credit Suisse, Nestle, etc. This allows them to widen their horizon in understanding various forces of globalisation through experiential learning.
Further, under the Global Outreach Program, IIPM invites distinguished faculties from leading global institutions like Harvard, Wharton, Columbia, Chicago, Yale, London School of Economics, Oxford, Cambridge, IMD Lausanne, INSEAD, etc., to come down to India to interact with IIPM students.
The IIPM programme is today regarded as the only course with a wider coverage than MBA courses taught anywhere else in the world because of its integration with National Economic Planning and a compulsory Marketing Specialization making it the most intellectually stimulating course in India. In the light of globalization, IIPM aims to create a new generation of entrepreneurial managers, who can face with confidence emerging challenges of international markets, while remaining committed to remove massive poverty masses within a generation.

Academic options and corporate futures

B-Schools now offer a much wider range of courses, which facilitate career specialisation right from the first step

The path to a focused management career is a much easier one to tread these days. With B-Schools increasingly providing industry-specific courses at the degree and post-graduate diploma level, students can now look at such a specialisation right from day one of their management education.
This also enables them to make the transition from the halls of academia to the conference rooms in their preferred industry organisation that much sooner. Unlike the past, there is no need to first do a general course, start working and then do a specialised course side-by-side.
As each new career opportunity presents itself, B-Schools have come up with relevant courses that not only help in bridging the manpower gap, but also actually offer a curriculum that meets industry needs beyond just the basic recruitment criteria.
There are courses in spheres like Services Management, Pharmaceuticals Management, Capital Markets, Actuarial Science, Technology and Retail Management, Wealth Management, Global Mergers and Acquisitions, Foreign Trade Policy and Derivatives, which enable the management aspirants to take advantage of emerging opportunities. With such a vast range of options on offer from B-Schools - and this is just the tip of the iceberg so to speak - the future of management students seems very bright indeed.
The most important thing is that industry and academia have not only managed to shrug off the past but are also working together to build a better future for students. The course curriculum and internships are being designed to mirror the real corporate world as much as possible and healthy ties with the corporate world to ensure students have exposure to current trends and challenges, in light of emerging career opportunities
Initiatives such as live projects, summer internships, real life case studies, guest lectures by industry professionals, seminars, workshops and industrial visits enable management institute to provide essential practical exposure to the students. Establishing industry partnerships in conventional as well as sunrise sectors enables candidates to work on short-term and long-term projects.
B-Schools in India are increasingly benchmarking themselves and their courses against the best in the world. There is a rising emphasis on management education in the current scenario, with a minimum level of management courses has become essential for employment and/or career growth in most fields given the extremely competitive workplace environment. Interestingly, instead of being complacent, most B-Schools are upping the ante by benchmarking themselves against the best in India, followed by Asia and finally the world.

Managing local aspirants with global aspirations

The DNA-Indus 2011 Survey identifies the top 30 B-Schools in India that are in sync with student and industry expectations based on international benchmarks


In this era of globalisation, the basic mantra repeated by just about every management aspirant, 'Consider the Corporate Perspective' increasingly incorporates an additional word - Multinational. It is no longer good enough for candidates to measure up to local standards; they need to be on par with the best worldwide.
This raising of the bar, in a manner of speaking, coupled with the multitude of institutes that have emerged in recent years, tends to throw the potential 'managers of tomorrow' into a tizzy. After all, the all-important process of how to effectively collate and filter data, analyse it and make an 'informed' decision is something they will only learn after joining a management institute, not before!
Simultaneously, this has upped the stakes tremendously where B-Schools are concerned. While the bottom line, for every management aspirant, remains getting a good job offer at the campus placement level, the institutes have begun to increasingly focus on the various aspects that can facilitate it. From industry relevant courses, to a strong industry interface where curriculum, guest faculty, familiarisation visits and internships are concerned; there are several clinching factors when it comes to the selection process. They also go a long way in determining how fast one can climb up the corporate ladder.
The hunt therefore, these days is for B-Schools that build a solid foundation with teaching methodology, technology, facilities and other coveted add-ons that can make all the difference between being shortlisted and selected during the campus interviews. It is not just important but essential for management aspirants planning to walk down the corporate corridors in future, to ensure that they opt for a B-School, which can be the launch pad for a career that will not only take off rapidly but also keep on rising sharply thereafter.
However, as pointed out earlier, this is no easy task. With the aim of facilitating the process and enabling management aspirants to not just understand the parameters on which they need to rate B-Schools, but also provide a systematically conducted, comprehensive rating, DNA and Indus Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd. recently conducted a survey to identify top 30 business school in India.
The objective of the research was to rank top business schools in India. The methodology comprised an awareness survey, which was conducted with a sample of 300 (75 each among potential students, faculty, alumni and HR managers) across six relevant cities of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Chandigarh, and Bangalore.
A list of 30 institutes was generated with the highest Top of Mind (ToM) and unaided recalls. Institutes were selected based on the mean as standard deviation calculated through the responses.
A perception survey was thereafter conducted for the selected 30 institutes with a sample of 452, again across the six cities of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Chandigarh and Bangalore. A weighted average was then calculated across different parameters for selection of the top business schools in India.
The evaluation of business schools was done on specific parameters like curriculum, intellectual impact, international exposure, image of the institute, placement, industry interaction, infrastructure and the potential to network.
The preferred business schools were listed on each parameter, followed by the evaluation of each business school on each parameter, leading to the list of Top 30 business school in India.
Target Respondents included students of the age group 18-30 years. These comprised potential students who were willing to get admitted in any business school, had passed 12th standard and passed within the last 1 year and alumni students who had passed from any business school within the last one year. Faculties who responded had to be a teaching faculty of any business school whereas the HR professionals had to be directly involved in campus recruitments. Snowball sampling process was used to ensure that the ratings for all business schools are taken.
The survey findings provided rankings in the following categories: Overall Ranking, Most admired institution - Course Curriculum, Most admired institution - Intellectual Impact, Most admired institution - International exposure, Most admired institution- Image of institute, Most admired institution - Placement, Most admired institution - Industry Interaction, Most admired institution - Infrastructure and Most admired institution - Potential to network.
These are the key factors that epitomise an ideal institute for imparting management education and stand aspirants in good stead, all through their careers. After all, a B-School that combines relevant and updated courses with exposure to the corporate world ensures that its students are ready to deliver from day one, making them an attractive proposition at the campus hiring stage. The same attributes that make a student attractive for hiring today, will be driving career growth tomorrow.