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Pressing home the outsourcing advantage
An interesting twist in the outsourcing bandwagon is the work being done in the publishing industry, which is nowadays taking advantage of the highly skilled labour and the cost effectiveness of companies in India. Some of the biggest international publishers are using Indian workers for their outsourcing work. Scientific books, journals, corporate publishing: there is a lot going on in computers in India for foreign companies who want to take home the advantage that such publishing offers, both in terms of cost and quality. Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore have come forth as major centres for such publishing outsourcing. Content development "One of the 500 fastest growing companies in the USA is based on outsourcing from India. TechBooks is in the business of providing publishing technology solutions that can be applied to any media — print, online, and wireless," says Ranjit Singh, the CEO of the company that is based in Fairfax, near Washington, USA. He was in India recently to visit family and friends on Divali. The company helps publishing houses by completely outsourcing content development, design and layout from them. Using an offshore business model, they provide their clients cost-effective solutions by executing work in India. The company has a primary focus on the US and European markets, with most of their clientele in the publishing industry. Outsourcing opposition Ranjit sees this as a sunrise industry and maintains that outsourcing is a "train that has left the station." He is aware of the political opposition to outsourcing in developed nations, but maintains that BPO is going to happen because of economic reasons. He narrates an anecdote of a politician from New Jersey, the state that has sponsored legislation against outsourcing to developing nations. "I asked the politician, whom I have known since the time we were both working for top American companies, if he would not save as much as 30 per cent of the operating costs of his business by taking the outsourcing route." "Yes, I would," replied the man, "but I am a politician, who knows that opposing outsourcing will get me votes!" Skill-sets needed The skill sets needed for publishing are the same, as any regular industry profile would demand: proofreading, copy editing, layout and quality control. Anyone who has a good command of English has a chance to work in such companies, though these obviously prefer to take those who have experience. In any case, these skill sets have to be complemented with adequate proficiency in computers and those with experience in HTML and XML would have a better chance. Ranjit’s company employs 1,800 persons in India and 350 in the USA, and they have 40-45 clients overseas. Advantage English India is a preferred destination largely because of the English-language proficiency of its workers. This is more so in publishing. Many companies in India are working on instruction manuals and catalogues. To take an example, the life of a Boeing aircraft is 25 years and it involves documentation that can run up to 1,00,000 pages. The computers on which the original work was done on are now obsolete, and of course, content is needed in multimedia format for it to be accessible in various kinds of situations. Such work is outsourced to places like India, where big companies take contracts and then sub-contract further. Thus, the companies strive to provide publishing technology solutions that can be applied to any media — print, online and wireless. Wireless is a growing field, especially for medical professionals, who value the information beamed on their personal digital assistants. Thus typically, you will have printed matter, which is converted into a text file. XML may then be used to format the text, after which it could be converted into a print file, made into an HTML file for use on a Website, or even used for a flash presentation. Everyone’s a publisher The way these companies see it, everyone is a publisher. They focus not only on the traditional publishers, but also on other verticals, such as financial printing, company reports, and even lawyers. Says Ranjit, "We see litigation support as a major growth area. The lawyers have to do a lot of what a traditional publisher does, and we are mobbing to assist them in this field." Thus, there is a whole new area in which outsourcing is offered as an option for foreign companies, and these companies save a lot in the process. One of the major problems that are likely to happen is the non-availability of manpower, as the companies seek to expand their operations. Attracting and retaining manpower talent is a challenge, but this is good for the workers, and in turn, the industry. There is no doubt that
they are ultimately looking for smart and versatile people to give There is no doubt that
outsourcing is here to stay, but the effort should always be to go
up the value chain by enhancing the services offered to clients.
Books will continue to be published worldwide, and a large number of
these would have the content that has been processed in India. Good
for us, after all, our book-making traditions are thousands of years
old, and now we are on the forefront of new technology, too! |
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WHEN
we think of business process outsourcing (BPO), our mind normally
wanders off to the call centres and back-end offices of financial
firms. However, the number of outsourcing possibilities is only
restricted by one’s imagination.