Goutam Das, Bangalore
The Asian Age
Once upon a time, the IT-BPO industry in India was very young and fast growing. People flooded cities such as Bengaluru that offered jobs with good money; also promised a decent nightlife. The real estate boom kick started.
Sudhindra Mokhasi’s PG landlord got a tad too ambitious. Since he had a day job with an IT firm, the landlord wanted to rent out his bed to a BPO guy who worked at night and slept during the day!
In business lingo, that’s great capacity utilisation —smart use of space resulting in more billings.
It is stories such as this that Mokhasi, founder and CEO of career and lifestyle enablement firm e-Sutra Chronicles wanted to share. He has now compiled 150 "true stories" from the world of BPO and call centres. The soon to be released book is titled BPO-Sutra and is published by Rupa & Co.
"I wanted to paint a 360 degree picture of the BPO industry," Mokhasi says. "The popular perception is that the industry is scam-hit."
BPOs started off as cost centres for MNCs. To hide the monotony of the job and attract talent, positions were marketed as fun jobs — "the type of job you take up for a while, meet pretty women at night, travel in office provided transport, earn good money, have a party, and then move onto other things in life".
Mokhasi, who quit IT-BPO firm MphasiS as its head of global business development and technology solutions to start his own company, says the "drink and dance" philosophy soon backfired.
"The society over reacted and started condemning it. When parents started dissuading their kids from taking up jobs in the BPO industry, companies had to launch a makeover initiative to correct perceptions."
BPO-Sutra, the writer says, celebrates the industry, tracking it through its transition years into its current image of an employment generator. Short stories on work apart, there are scam stories, but borders mostly on how employees fudge work and gets the better of their boss.
"My motivation in writing this book is because it is a first in India — there is hardly any experiential genre in India for any industry. Secondly, this is the world’s first book of stories from India’s BPO and call centers," Mokhasi says.
He also has a third motivation in compiling the book. e-Sutra has now rolled out the beta version of a networking site for BPO professionals, prospective employees, and for people who are simply curious about the industry.
Both the book and site could help each other. In turn, the two could help the industry.
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