The BPO wave...

“Thank you for calling HP Total care, may I have your name and phone number please”

Been there, done that…

The state of Indian economy has never been so good with sensex crossing all milestones. One industry which has contributed like anything is one which we all love to hate and hate to love.. BPO, astonishing however it may sound but removing these three words from the economic map of India can spell doom for the whole nation not just in terms of GPD growth but also in terms of number of employees this industry employs not every year, not every month but every single day….

We as in Indians have made our self addicted to such high growth and job opportunities that criticizing it can be a big suicide.
After all, what this industry has which is driving the Indian youth towards it and has made them as forever slaves of its ever-growing empire

The answer is very much clear in the hi-fi lanes of gurgaon and noida…
What all a B com or a BA graduate can expect n that too in 3rd class?

I f I would have asked this question 5 years back, the answer might have involved a stressful and struggle filled 9-5 job with little money to spare..
But now the same graduate can have a job that offers..

5 days a week, free pick up n drop in AC cabs, Ac office with hi tech infrastructure and cool environment and salary as high as hard u can work as your every extra hour or extra day other than routine can fetch u overtime money!

All one needs to have is good control over English language and willingness to work in nights which anyways has become a part of any mid teenager in a metro.

BPO has no doubt filled a huge gap of unemployment with fuelling all fii’s resulting in high growth in terms of GDP….

But somewhere down the line the policymakers have let go this industry with out control and as a result what we r witnessing today is that Indian youth becoming addicted to such kind of jobs because of the money factor, take a quick survey around and u will find very few who have a clear cut vision about their career growth in a BPO.
With undergraduates actively forming an important share of the workforce, there is a clear loophole in the hiring norms of these so called multinationals.

To add fuel to the fire, Call centers have mushroomed all over the places to get advantage of cheap labor and not all are serious recruiters. One would find hardly 2 or 3 BPO’s offering an employee what he /she is worth of.

Such companies hire young blood by promising them a fast track career growth from an agent level to team leader and so on…
However the reality is far from it and one sees him/her self as being the part of never ending cat and mouse game where employee is always a loser, once out of this job, one finds him/her self at the starting point as industry doesn’t recognize their efforts as a valid work experience and rightly so as guiding an American about how to install his new computer is hardly a value add to one’s profile.


On my personal front, BPO has always done a great favor from winning the debate at college level (supporting the fact that it is a hurdle to nurture future talent of India) to being a part of it for the second time to earn some quick bucks!

Willingly or unwillingly, BPO has become a sore pill which has to be taken in order to keep the economy healthy and strong…