BACKLASH: A report carried in The Telegraph on June 24

What Kkaran Bahree did was peanuts. The storm over the UK tabloid’s sting operation has blown over. But Infinity e-Search ? where Bahree worked as content developer ? has gone into a clarification over-drive. And the point being highlighted is not what Bahree did, or didn’t do. What’s of import, as the vast business process outsourcing (BPO) industry seeks to stress, is that the Gurgaon-based web-marketing firm is not a BPO company.

“We design websites and create software solutions for business on the Web,” says Deepak Masih, lawyer for Infinity e-Search. “We are not a BPO or a call centre, but a web-marketing firm,” he adds.

But, clearly, nobody is listening. The Bahree scam ? triggered by a story in the tabloid which said he had acquired and passed on confidential information about accounts in international banks ? has put the BPO industry in the centre of a controversy.

Till the other day, everything was fine with the world of BPOs. It created employment, brought in revenues and was the envy of the Western world. No longer, though. BPOs are now being seen ? in some quarters at least ? as dens of vice. The industry is being hauled up for slack security, inadequate training and poor man management. Its workforce is young and irresponsible, goes the litany of complaints. And, not surprisingly, the rate of attrition ? people leaving jobs ? is a high 55 per cent.

Eye of the storm

How this shift-in-blame happened is not exactly a mystery. The BPO industry has been sitting on a time bomb, says V. Bharathwaj, vice-president ? global marketing, 24/7 Customer ? a Bangalore-based BPO firm. “Bad public perception has been building up for a while. It took a spark for a storm to erupt,” he says.

There are, of course, two sides to the BPO coin. Statistics-wise, the industry promises to transform India the way oil changed the fortunes of West Asian countries. The industry, growing at a rate of 60 per cent per annum, employs 3,48,000 people and is expected to generate $12.2 billion in revenue by 2006 ? up from $2.4 billion logged in 2002-03.

But the fancy figures aren’t helping. Five years since it took off, the industry is struggling to gain social acceptance. “Parents want to know if they should pull their children out of call centres; I have been asked if Wipro Spectramind was handing out contraceptives to employees,” says Raman Roy, former president and CEO, Wipro Spectramind.

The stories of stress, promiscuity, cultural isolation and odd working hours have led to a dangerous build-up for an industry that depends on human resources as its basic building block. Companies are caught in a vicious web of high attrition and growing concerns among parents of young graduates seeking jobs in the BPO sector about its work culture.

And, industry sources point out, while jobs in BPOs are still sought-after opportunities are growing in other sectors as well. The service industry is finding its feet in India ? and growing at 10 per cent per annum. With careers emerging in the hotel, airline and banking sectors, the BPO industry is predicted to face a workforce shortage of 2,62,000 employees by 2009, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM).

Damage control

Which means, it’s damage-control time. BPO companies are now tackling the problem head on. The industry is being projected as serious and knowledge-based. Companies are talking of creating leaders out of 25-year-olds. Parents are invited to company campuses, and seminars are held to dispel myths about BPOs.

NASSCOM is planning a national campaign to clear the image of the sector. For starters, it will conduct lectures and discussions in colleges. “It’s an attempt to set the record straight,” says Kiran Karnik, president, NASSCOM. “Scare stories have made families apprehensive about allowing their children to work in call centres,” he adds.

Image change begins with a name change. Earlier, BPO employees were given a blanket designation of ‘call centre executive’. Now, employees get domain-related designations. 24/7 Customer has designated its employees as insurance advisors, logistics experts, technical support executives and retail banking specialists. “This makes the knowledge portion of the job visible to the external world,” says Bharathwaj.

24/7 Customer has conducted two seminars on myths about BPOs in six months. College students and parents were invited. Six hundred people showed up, claims Bharathwaj. A panel discussed everything from whether virtual workers felt a loss of identity to BPOs being glorified telemarketing shops. “Anxiety levels about the industry are very high,” says Bharathwaj.

Gurgaon-based GE Capital International Services (GECIS) relies on education to beat attrition. The company runs what it calls the ‘GECIS University’. It has tie-ups with MBA institutes such as the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, IIM, Kozhikode, Xavier Labour Research Institute in Jamshedpur and the Narsee Monji Institute of Management, Mumbai. Two years ago, the company had an agreement only with IMT, Ghaziabad.

A GECIS employee can apply for a recommendation for a fully-funded MBA programme after working for six months in the company. “There are MBA courses marked for everyone ? from entry-level executives to assistant vice-presidents,” says Rahul Mishra, senior officer, GECIS.

Money talks

Big money is going into the image change, with advertising emerging as a handy tool in shaping the new look. BPO spending on ads is going up by 30 per cent every year, says Subrato Chakroborty, MD of Delhi-based advertising agency, Brand Curry Communications Pvt. Ltd, which handles the Vertex BPO account. “BPO ad spend is growing at the same rate as the fast-moving insurance and finance sectors,” he adds.

Citibank’s call centre, e-Serve, has launched an ad blitz on television. The company’s TV commercial shows a young BPO employee bowling over guests at a dinner party with his insights into the US financial market. “The idea is to portray a serious image of the company,” says a Citibank spokesperson.

A parallel soul-searching exercise is also on within the industry. “We need to analyse how the industry earned an image of a merciless, profit-seeking taskmaster in just five years,” says Devraj Dey, senior manager, Sistel India, a Mumbai-based BPO firm.

Industry insiders blame it on bad image-management. “The industry has been positioned all wrong,” says Bharathwaj. The perception is that anyone who speaks decent English gets a job in a BPO. “Companies have not emphasised degrees and skills,” he adds.

Analysts also talk about the social upheaval the BPO industry has caused. “It has created a tectonic social shift in India. BPO workers are treated as a distinct social category of hard workers and big spenders,” says Rajiv Gowda, professor, IIM, Bangalore. The industry has created a class of young people who work by night, walk in and out of jobs and buy cars for their 23rd birthday.

Compare this with the serious, hard-working Indian middle class of 10 years ago, which toiled to get a government job or an engineering or medical degree. “Resentment is bound to arise. The country’s brightest students worked hard to land a secure government job. Now, average graduates cake-walk into jobs and earn three times more,” says Gowda.

The average age of employees in BPO companies is shrinking. Starting last year, GECIS began recruiting students straight out of school. “These employees are allowed three days off in a week to go to college. The company pays half their tuition fees,” says Mishra of GECIS.

To sustain a young workforce, BPO firms offer a “relaxed and fun culture” in office. But the strategy of emphasising fun and glamour, holds Dey, has backfired. “BPOs are looked upon as non-serious companies,” he says.

Goes with the job

Even employee incentives like free transport have boomeranged on BPOs. Toyota Qualis and Tempo Travellers have suddenly taken over city roads. The Qualises are being equated with rash driving, and tempos with fumes. “This has created a perception that BPO companies don’t bother about the eco-system of a city,” says Bharathwaj.

Add to this job pressures ? call centre executives maintain hourly deadlines ? isolation and lack of social life, and BPO jobs are coming under flak. “Unacceptability within the community is reducing pleasure in the job and killing motivation,” says Ali Khwaja, a Bangalore-based counsellor, who counsels BPO employees.

Clearly, those days are gone when all was well with the BPO sector. Kkaran Bahree wouldn’t have guessed he was opening up a can of worms for the industry. The sector is still looking for the lid.