The Hindu Business Line : Approaching offshoring

Although India is a great destination for an offshore experiment to reduce costs, improve efficiency and shorten time-to-market, delivering a seamless offshore experience is not easy and is not a fully stable process, observes Utkarsh Rai in Offshoring Secrets ( www.jaicobooks.com).

“Unrealistic expectations, hidden pitfalls, unexpected twists in policies, markets, and strategies can create hurdles that can disrupt even the simplest of an offshore exercise,” he rues.

Half the battle is won if a dream team can be assembled, writes Rai in a chapter on recruitment challenges. “Some organisations outsource their entire recruitment process to agencies, which is not the best or ideal solution.”

When hiring in large numbers, the attention to detail and quality can be lost, the author cautions. “Some recruitment agencies will go the extra mile to get a good team in place. The organisation should be prepared to pay a premium for such services and should dedicate a portion of its staff to work with them to provide all help and support for a quick and precise decision.”

The author discusses many critical HR issues in a chapter on ‘people management’. Take, for instance, the problem of ‘labels’ that is rife in the IT industry. “There are widely used designations in India like ‘module lead’, ‘technical lead’, ‘project lead’, which are either non-existent abroad or have different meanings,” Rai informs. “This is also the case with designations like ‘system analyst’, ‘architect’, and ‘staff engineer’.”

He finds that people prefer designations that they can profess to be in, especially within their social circle of friends from different IT companies. “Some people would like a higher designation for other reasons too: fetching better responses on marriage proposals, or getting a better deal from banks on loans.”

A read that packs a horde of insights compactly and in a simple style.

Flip side of IT

Rising labour costs, rapid growth in demand for talented manpower, high attrition rate, outsourcing backlash, limited career opportunities, early stagnation, late promotions and lack of long-term options are some of the niggling worries of the IT and ITES sectors, says Seema Joshi in Growth and Structure of Tertiary Sector in Developing Economies ( www.academicfoundation.com).

The jobs in BPO are quite demanding, she adds. “The close monitoring, continuous work assessments, less number of holidays, absence of organisational activities, and promotion of individualisation lead to isolation on the one hand and reduce the scope for establishing trade unions on the other.”

The low-end nature of work in case of most of the employees means little scope for skill upgradation except picking up accents or communication skills, the author bemoans. “In fact gaining specific accents may adversely affect the future job prospect of the employees.”

She is also unhappy that the atypical work timings of call centre jobs act as a constraint for the married woman. “That is why empirical studies reveal that most of the women working in call centres are in the age group of 18-30. They prefer to stay unmarried as they want to be economically independent and they find it difficult to balance their work with family life because of unusual hours of work.”

Research work of importance.

What is ‘privacy’?

Data protection laws, wherever they are found, have two principal aims, viz. protection of privacy during the processing of personal data, and the maintenance of free flows of personal data between countries, says Stewart Room in Data Protection & Compliance in Context ( www.vivagroupindia.com).

These dual aims, privacy and free flow, appear to be in conflict, but the realities of modern life, he observes, demand a free flow of personal information for the effective performance of public functions. However, “ensuring a high level of protection for the privacy of personal data that is undergoing processing is a prerequisite to the continuance of free flows of personal data.”

That is, the law will allow a person to transfer data to another person or to another country provided that the transferor meets the minimum standards prescribed by the law, explains Room.

But if you wonder what ‘privacy’ is, the book speaks of an early definition of the word as ‘a right to be let alone.’ Interestingly, this definition is supported by two newer concepts, ‘substantive privacy’ and ‘informational privacy.’ Substantive privacy, as the author elaborates, is about people being free to make substantive decisions about how they lead their lives, free from interference by the State or by others. The latter, that is, informational privacy, is about the ability of people to control the flow of information about them.

“These two concepts are interconnected and a state of informational privacy is often a prerequisite to enjoyment of substantive privacy.”

Important to note is that the right to privacy is not an absolute right transcending all other rights and interests. “The right to privacy is one of many competing interests and it is the law’s job to find an appropriate balance between them.”

Recommended addition to the security professionals’ shelf.

Success strategy

Have you ever thought of how information flows in an organisation? In a traditional hierarchy, information flows up and down within each functional discipline, appropriately summarised for each level of management, explain Mark Morgan, Raymond E. Levitt and William Malek in Executing Your Strategy ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com).

“In contrast, a strong matrix structure requires project and product line managers to communicate horizontally across the hierarchy. This requires information systems that can break down the functional information at each level by project, program, or product, and provide accurate and timely reports to the lateral managers.”

The authors cite the example of UPS, which has begun to provide a broader set of customised logistics solutions for large customers such as catalogue vendors — solutions that require power and robust new information technologies and a collaborative systems integration capability to link IT infrastructure seamlessly with customers’ IT systems.

Primarily working with a traditional functional hierarchy, and using a set of structural overlays such as steering committees and informal communities of practice to manage the IT workforce and vendors, UPS could innovate at a fast enough rate for its marketplace. How? “The teams change over time according to strategic needs and are supported by extensive use of crosscutting processes and IT systems to maintain adequate levels of market and customer responsiveness.” A case of success with a simple organisation structure, and at low management costs, the authors conclude.

Great takeaways.

Tailpiece

“The bank is hi-tech! They approve the loan after seeing the scanned images of my documents sent over the email.”

“And they also send you the cheque as a scanned image?”

dmurali@thehindu.co.in