The Global Village...

"Which company is more "American"—Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy
Services, or Armonk (N.Y.)-based IBM (IBM)? Evaluate the two based on
where they make their sales, and the answer is surprising. TCS,
India's largest tech-services company, collected 51% of its revenues
in North America last quarter, while 65% of IBM's were overseas." --
excerpt from a Business Week article titled "IBM vs. Tata: Who's More
American?"

It never ceases to amaze me how truly global the world is becoming. I
remember studying about Marshall McLuhans concept of the Global
Village during my Masters program in Mass Communications, and it now
seems like this is increasingly happening in front of my eyes.
Centrifugal forces are at work bring ideas, groups and people closer.
However the centripetal forces are doing their part as well, by
isolating cultures, traditions, and concepts further away. During this
process of self discovery, we need to arrive at a happy medium without
disrupting the unstable equlibrium that currently exists in our world.
How are we going to do that, only time will tell!

Read the full Business Week article at--
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_18/b4082000234598.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_best+of+the+magazine

Collecting Debts From India

A new trend in outsourcing to India is in debt collection says this
article in the New York Times titled, "Debt Collection Done From India
Appeals to U.S. Agencies."

An excerpt from the article --
"Americans are used to receiving calls from India for insurance claims
and credit card sales. But debt collection represents a growing
business for outsourcing companies, especially as the American economy
slows and its consumers struggle to pay for their purchases.

Armed with a sophisticated automated system that dials tens of
thousands of Americans every hour, and puts confidential information
like Social Security numbers, addresses and credit history at
operators' fingertips, this new breed of collectors is chasing down
late car payments, overdue credit card debt and lapsed installment
loans. Debt collectors in India often cost about one-quarter the price
of their American counterparts, and are often better at the job, debt
collection company executives say.

"India will be the only place we grow this year," said J. Brandon
Black, the chief executive of the Encore Capital Group, a debt
collection company based in San Diego. India is the company's largest
operating area, with about half the company's collection force of more
than 300.

Although the stereotype of a collector may be "some guy with chains
and a cut-off shirt," Mr. Black said, collectors in India are "very
polite, very respectful, and they don't raise their voice." He added,
"People respond to that."

Read the full article at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/04/24/business/worldbusiness/24debt.html&tntemail0=yv

Outsourcing Stress

The nature and being of Indian Society has changed drastically over
the last few years, there is no doubt about this. For those of us who
visit every other year we see the rapid changed fast forwarding in
front of our eyes with every visit. Each time I visit, I notice the
latent stress that did not exist several years ago, when life was more
laid back and priorities were very different. Today, everyone is more
preoccuped with work, managing dual income households, where money is
not the issue but time is.

I saw this article in the Chicago Tribune, and I felt that it was
right on. Read this excerpt below.

"After two years working nights at a U.S. company's computer call
center, Vamsi knew it was time to quit when his 6-year-old son brought
home a school portrait he'd drawn of his father, asleep in bed.
"He was asked to draw a picture of his mom and dad, and he drew me
sleeping. That's the only way he ever saw me," remembers the
31-year-old, who like many southern Indians goes by only one name. "He
never saw me doing anything else."
Indians may have taken over three-quarters of the world's call-center
jobs, but they've also taken on the stresses of those jobs: weight
gain, depression, boredom and, often, relationship troubles."

Call centers are just one example of an industry that is catering to a
different part of the world. So many other sectors are in the same
boat. Friends and family that live in India, maintain the same hours
and schedules that I maintain on the east coast. I can see the stress
that this puts on their family life and their personal relationships.

With stress come otehr problems such as substance abuse,increasing
divorce rates, unstable children and the list is endless.
"A study last year in the Indian Journal of Sleep Medicine found that
40 percent of call-center workers surveyed smoked, compared with 7
percent of a control group, and 36 percent had more than two alcoholic
drinks a week, against 2 percent of the control group. Another 27
percent of call-center workers also reported using sleeping pills or
other drugs, often in an effort to combat the sleep deprivation that
nags overnight workers," says the Tribune article.

Read the full piece at--
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-india-stress_nu_goeringapr20,0,6517218.story

TCS's new Cincinnati Headquarters

One of the Indian companies that is making waves, expanding rapidly in
North America is Tata. TCS recently opened a delivery center in Ohio
and plans to staff it with about a 1000 employees.

Here is an excerpt--
"More than a century after the company's great forbear Jamshedji Tata
scoured Ohio looking for steel expertise, India's tech major Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS) opened a 1000-seat delivery centre outside
Cincinnati on Monday, marking a small but significant counter to
overwrought reports about job flight from the United States.

Eminences ranging from the state governor to the local school
superintendent turned up for the inauguration of the new facility, to
hear and exult about 1000 jobs being created in the area. It was a
rare moment of relief, pride, and vindication too for India - and an
Indian company - which has been under attack from protectionist forces
in the US for taking away American jobs.

The delivery centre, located in the Cincinnati suburb of Milford, will
take in mostly local hires over the next three years after TCS cranks
it up with associates from India. It will handle design, development
and delivery needs of TCS' key North American customers such as
Boeing, Nielsen and General Electric."

Read the full article at--
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Tata_jobs_bloom_in_middle_America/articleshow/2879247.cms

Forbes Asian Fab 50

India is again home to more Fab 50 companies than anywhere else. Twelve Indian firms made the cut, including its Big Four information technology outsourcers.

Of the other eight that make the list, companies such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Bharti Airtel are growing fast by reaching out to India's rural customers, not to Western markets. Others, such as Grasim, Larsen & Toubro and Reliance, are shoring up the country's infrastructure at a furious pace.

Company Country Market Value ($bil) Sales Industry
Bharat Heavy Electricals India 20.4 3.8 Capital Goods
Bharti Airtel India 39.2 4.3 Telecommunications Services
Grasim Industries India 6.5 3.2 Construction
HDFC Bank India 9.8 2.0 Banking
Icici Bank India 22.9 9.8 Banking
Infosys Technologies India 27.4 3.2 Software & Services
Larsen & Toubro India 17.0 4.7 Capital Goods
Reliance Industries India 62.1 23.3 Oil & Gas Operations
Satyam Comp. Services India 7.9 1.5 Software & Services
Tata Consultancy Services India 27.6 4.3 Software & Services
Tata Steel India 9.5 5.8 Materials
Wipro India 17.2 3.5 Software & Services

See complete article at the URL below --
http://members.forbes.com/global/2007/0917/074.html