Back office to the fore

L.N. Revathy

FOR 65 year-old Kailash, a government servant with a big family to support, life was not a bed of roses even after retirement, not until he got off to a start as a data transcriptionist two months ago.

Today, he is a contented man, enjoying his life after retirement with more leisure and the freedom to work at hours more convenient to him. He works for about four hours on an average every day and Kailash's commitment and accuracy have earned him praise from his employers.

Despite his age and relatively weak eye-sight Kailash has managed this far. He is a keen and enthusiastic listener and a good critic. But he is not alone. A host of VRS optees, college students and housewives have joined the bandwagon, since data transcription neither requires a huge investment nor any specialised training in computers. The registration for such services has been on the rise since May this year.

The opportunity has come as a big boon to housewives who have just a basic knowledge of English. Though the return from such an avocation is not comparable to industry standards, it has helped thousands of people earn that extra money.

Currently, only about three to four companies in Coimbatore are engaged in data-processing assignments such as data transcription, bulk mailing, medical billing and legal transcription and all of them say that they have enough orders to keep them going atleast for the next three to four years.

The meltdown in the US IT sector does not seem to have had a cascading effect on IT-enabled services, which are now catching up fast. Atleast two of the three players here have won contracts from US-based companies for putting a global directory address in place, apart from bulk-mailing contracts and other back-office assignments.

The setting looks just perfect -- to tide over the slowdown at home, most US firms are increasingly outsourcing their non-core functions to a country where English-educated labour is talented, but cheap. And this exactly where India fits the bill.

While earlier, it was only the US companies that leveraged on these opportunities, now more and more markets are relying on India to fulfil their IT service requirements. What we need at this point of time is confidence in the future, says Kailash.

These companies impart training on processing the data into organised formats using fundamental database management software packages and transmitting mails over the Net. The returns and data quantum are directly proportional to the investment. The rate starts from Re 0.25 per data and goes up to Rs 1.25 per data. The returns for bulk mailing are awfully low when compared to data transcription.

The market for Internet-based advertising has been growing rapidly in recent years. However, as the market expands, the participating companies will need to confront a number of new issues.

Though the returns are comparatively low, given the lack of job opportunities for the 50-plus age group in our country, these opportunities have thrown open newer vistas, whereby these people not only earn, but also put their free time to productive use.

During 2000-01, the IT-enabled service sector's revenue exceeded Nasscom's projections by almost Rs 100 crore to touch Rs 4100 crore, growing by 70 per cent over 1999-2000 (Rs 2400 crore). The software body predicts that India will employ over one million people and earn $17 billion from IT-enabled services by 2008.

A report to the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council sees the industry's exports to the US growing from $264 million in 2000 to over $4 billion in 2005.