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STORY so far: I am disappointed that at a very crucial point we were to pull out of further pursuit of the errant contractor Gintee. However, I realise that as executives in a company we have our own limitations when our target can get nastier, as in the present case.

Satisfied that we, as a team, had set in motion a machinery to hotly chase the building scam, there is a well-earned retreat waiting for us. And we cool off with Matrix Reloaded.

Episode 36

If you have been away from work for a few days, and have to return to your desk, the normal sentiment is to drag the feet like a kid going to school after a long vacation. It is not unusual to hear comments such as `My leave was over, you see, and I had to come' or `Ah, I don't like working, yaar,' and so forth.

However, my mood was different when I returned to office after that whirlwind tour down South and the brief holiday at company's expense.

There were many things to catch up, such as the progress of the international arbitration in the bank matter. Then the preparedness of the company for the new corporate law regime if the Bill in the works got enacted. Plus the issues that had been raised during the AGM and needed follow-up.

Above all, it was necessary to know what the boss had in mind when he spoke of an important assignment waiting for us once we touched base.

"Meeting at 11 a.m.," said the intranet bulletin that flashed on my screen, and I clicked the `agenda'.

There was but one line in it and it read "ITES, BPO". You ask me about IPO or HBO, ITOs or ET marks, I would know, but what is this animal, I asked myself, and so began to educate myself immediately. There were still about 90 minutes for the meeting.

*******

First things first, BPO is business process outsourcing, and ITES is IT enabled services, and IT is information technology. I am disappointed for a few moments that my search for `ITES' yields URLs that talk about Mumbai-ites in Auckland and Shi-ites coming under attack. Nasscom has some useful material on ITeS, as it puts it.

The spectrum of services would include customer interaction services, including call centres, back-office operations, revenue accounting, data entry, data conversion including finance and accounting and HR services, transcription/ translation services, content development/ animation/ engineering and design, remote education, data search, market research, network consultancy and management as IT enabled services.

International Data Corporation (IDC) has predicted that the ITeS market globally will account for revenues of $1.2 trillion by 2006. The sector currently employs more than a lakh people. According to a recent study, there are at least ten more jobs waiting for every current job, and our revenue potential is pegged at Rs 81,000 crore.

I learn something that I never remembered to have seen in my tax books — that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had issued a notification about a year before 9/11 listing the ITeS that are covered under the provisions of Sections 10A/10B and 80 HHE of the Income Tax Act. And the list includes back-office operations, data processing, geographic information system services, insurance claim processing, legal databases, and so forth. How useful it would be if the CA Institute conducted programmes and seminars on this vital sector, I wonder.

********

"We cannot ignore this area," said the boss, pointing to a slide on the screen that showed the growth of ITeS over the years.

"But, sir," said Chandru, "We are in the biotech business. Won't we be changing horses midstream by jumping on to the ITeS bandwagon?"

"I understand your concern," said the boss. "I had my colleagues on the Board to prepare a report on whether the company could venture into this."

It came as a surprise for me that directors could sit and work for a report. In many companies directors came and went, only to collect travel reimbursement and fee for sitting and doing nothing. Was it not the Infosys chief who conceded that he was not aware of any models by which one could assess the contribution of directors?

I looked around to see Gupta, Balu and others, chiding myself that as top-level executives in the company it should have been we who should have brought up such ideas.

Yet, the common ground reality is that we get engrossed in what we do, right or wrong, and it is rare for ideas to emerge when eyes are blockaded by the immediacy of the day's work that drags on into late evenings.

Well, in the process of my cogitations, I had missed the next 2-3 slides that the boss was flipping.

********

That afternoon, there was a visit to a call centre along with the boss. Farid, the man in-charge of the facility took us round to give us a first-hand feel.

There were rows of people, busy answering calls on the phone, calm and pleasant, and the ambience was relaxed. "The first thing," said Farid, and I began to note down, "is to get our customer relaxed, if he is not already. And to do that we have only one tool — the operator's voice."

The centre was catering to a big insurance company's policy enquiry calls, as also handling a promo for an FMCG. "We have offers from a bottling company to ease their inventory problems through our solutions," said Farid happily counting. "And a courier company wants to manage its logistics through our staff."

"We could be competing with you," I told Farid winking, even as the boss was in my earshot.

"Come, join the party," Farid smiled. "There is enough space for more players."

Soft music was playing in the background, and I could decipher the rhyme that hid behind the tune: "The itsy bitsy spider, Went up the water spout; Down came the rain, And washed the spider out. Out came the sun, And dried up all the rain. And the itsy bitsy spider, Went up the spout again."

(To be continued)

Swati_CA@hotmail.com

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