Thought Garage

There was so much pressure on Indian IT Services firms for a long time to enter product space and they refused and insisted that Services is the key. After all, their strength and  innovation is in creating market driven and efficient service delivery models. 

They not only succeeded with flying colors in delivering services, they influenced the entire world to turn to services. So in more than one way, there were right on about services. 

Some key milestones that indicate the strong inclination towards services just the way Indian IT Services headed all along:

• IBM once synonymous with PC sells its iconic PC Business and rebrand itself as IT services (or emphatically Smart Solutions for the planet)
• HP buys EDS and says it is critical to enter Services business as profits drop in all other directions.
• Dell buys Perot Systems, seen as following HP.
• Xerox, the iconic innovator buys Affiliated Computer Services, citing exactly the same reason of survival due to dropping profits every where.

Now, will Indian IT Services companies get the true credit they deserve in the market place?

The days of ‘Free’ Customer service looks to be over. At least a quality customer service is. This comes to me (and I am sure for most of you) as a big surprise, but I guess we all have to get used to this.

Occasionally, “we’ve heard from customers that it’s hard to understand a particular accent and that they couldn’t understand the instructions they were getting,” said Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman.

So, Dell introduced a Support Service called as ‘Your Tech Team’ Service, that promises that Technical Experts are from North America (instead of Bangalore, India for instance) and average wait time would be less than 2 minutes.

Sounds Great, finally Dell heard the Customers. Not quite. This service is not for every Dell customer that purchases a Dell product, but only for those who pay an additional $12.95 a month to receive this ‘premium’ service.

And Dell Spokesman put a PR spin to this ‘Pay if You need Good Customer Support’ service,

“This illustrates Dell’s commitment to customer choice.” -Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman

In Plain English, Dell is saying ‘Good Customer Support’ is not Free and if you need a Customer Support that you can understand (ie., accent free), you must pay $12.95 a month.

If Dell really understand customers that they have difficultly in understanding instructions by its Global (ie., outsourced) support team, why not replace it with a better customer support that is local, for free.

Source: The Bangalore Backlash: Call Centers Return to U.S

After thinking for a while, I guess, I am already getting used to this new idea. If a company promises a quick (like Dell promising within 2 minutes) response and provide me a customized service for me, I guess I am ready to pay for it. I am not thrilled by a NA associate to responding to my call, as I can understand lots of accentuated instructions, and also I felt some times, that NA associates aren’t any better (they are much worse in many cases). Job hopping is a normality in NA and I don’t expect any better service from an NA associate if they haven’t worked in that particular job for some good time. And on average, most doesn’t spend any good time on any job. So it goes without saying what we can expect of them. And it is equally difficult to find a person to be in NA and doesn’t have an accent anyways.

I asked this question to many of my friends and colleagues in Bangalore, their answer was unanimous. A big NO. They are already spending about 3 hours in their commute already and 67% of children in Bangalore are suffering from Asthma and respiratory illnesses, thanks to pollution cover added by alarming increase in automobiles on the narrow roads. When they think about the Rs.1 Lakh car Nano, they could only think of how worse the pollution could get and how their commute time will just double.

I wasn’t sure that even the automobile industry is so heavily subsidized. Here is an excellent analysis of what Nano means to Indian economy and its crippling infrastructure.

Last fortnight, when the world’s richest Indian Lakshmi Mittal visited Kolkata, the city of his youth, he was thrilled to see change. Mittal told the media that the biggest difference he saw was the many flyovers dotting the city skyline and “disciplined traffic”. This is great progress, he told journalists, who promptly reported that the tycoon had given the city’s road and traffic management a big thumbs up. I was also in Kolkata that day. But all I could see was lines and lines of traffic, belching black smoke, honking madly. It seemed we were in the same city but on different planets.

This incident best exemplifies the debate on the Nano, the Rs 1 lakh car launched by the Tatas. The Nano, like the Kolkata flyover, is an idea of progress that has captured public imagination. There is no doubt that any car that is small is better than a big car in terms of fuel economy and emissions. There is also no doubt that affordable cars are better than expensive ones. But the question is in what direction is Nano leading us. The issue is not small, cheap cars or big, expensive cars, but all cars. The issue is whether it is helping mobility and at what price.

Let’s take the ‘affordability’ question first. The fact is that cars—small or big—are heavily subsidized. The problem is that when economists (including those who run the government) fret and fume about mounting subsidy bills, they think of farmers—fertilizer, electricity and food—not our cars. But subsidy is what they unquestionably get.

….

Ultimately, it is not about economics. It is about politics and the imagination needed to build cities in which mobility does not mean cars. Flyovers can be built, but only if we know where they will lead.

The Nano-flyover syndrome | Editor’s Page | Down To Earth magazine

Subsidies given to Agriculture have been witnessing a downturn in the recent past and it appears we are not moving away from subsidies but we are just redistributing them to the lobbyists. Is having an affordable car is more important than Agriculture?