Catering to the world?

Business process outsourcing has made its entry into Indian publishing in a big way. But, before getting into what it means for the future, there are three basic facts of the Indian book scene that will put the whole picture in perspective.

First of all, no Indian publishing company, publishing in the English language, has ever survived on the strength of its lists alone. It has always supplemented the lists with imported books, either from its principals or by becoming exclusive distributors for others. This mix sustained such publishers, even if profits on the imported books were meagre.

Secondly, as competition got stiffer, publishers acquired reprint rights for the Indian and adjoining markets. These were acquired with stiff upfront fees. But they gave exclusivity, which meant that nobody else could import copies of the book; they also made books affordable for readers.

Thirdly, some publishers established printing houses in the belief that printing and book publishing were the same thing. However, the former is a mechanical process, the latter intellectual.

This means that Indian publishers have always diversified into allied fields because there were not enough margins for expansion and growth. BPO had made its beginnings by the mid-Eighties, but there was never a ‘total outsourcing’ in the sense of the entire production of a book — editing, design and layout, scanning images, composing, printing and binding, and so on — being outsourced. There was ‘discrete’ outsourcing of parts of the process, including functions that could be handled remotely. In specific terms, this meant composing (photosetting) and transferring the data on a magnetic tape for printing elsewhere.

The range of activities has now expanded considerably to include design and layout, printing and binding, after-sales activities like sales promotion, keeping track of retail sales, preparation of royalty statements, a whole range of accounting procedures, and so on. To put it simply, all backroom work that can be executed at a distance has been transferred to centres in Bangalore, Chennai, Gurgoan, Noida and Mumbai, with Calcutta beginning to catch up.

There are four reasons for the present mood of optimism. First, many Western publishers are discovering the potential of the Indian service industry. For instance, we have hundreds of science graduates working as keyboard operators, but there are few such people in the West, and employing them is very expensive.

Secondly, the range of work is constantly expanding. Hitherto, the most publicized parts of the outsourcing boom were confined to writing computer software codes and answering the telephone in call centres. Today, any process that “you don’t need to taste, feel, smell or touch” can be outsourced.

Thirdly, what is often overlooked is the size of the Indian diaspora in the West. They are everywhere — in the academia, in the professions, in the service industry and so on. It is these contacts that first break ground for business.

The final reason is the question of comparative costs or, as it is now called, comparative advantage. The idea of comparative costs can be extended from production of goods to services that are outsourced.

Thus, Indian publishers are re-positioning themselves to take on BPO activities. But there is a glitch: as of now, the purely mechanical operations are being transferred ; the intellectual functions are still being held back. Until they come too, there will be limits to growth.