Today, I am going back to last decade, ie first decade of this millennium (2000-09). This decade gave rise to two businesses, in which India became world leader in few years to come, and they are listed below
Call Centres
Call Centre has become a Generic term that covers everything from highly trained operators responding to telephone calls, to outsorcing of back office work-such as credit cards claims, processing of insurance policies, confirmation of airlines tickets etc.
India achieved a growth of almost 200% in Call Centre business by 2005, as compared to 2002, the business really started in big way in 1st quarter of Jan 2000.
Why India was chosen by Interantional Business for Call Centre Business- the answer is simple.
Availability of technical talent pool and ample space.
Presence of substantial English speaking manpower available at low cost.
Stability of the Govt.( at that time NDA govt was in power) and regulatory environment.
Presence of quality transport needs of employees, and good quality telecommunication infrastructure and time zone advantage.
Above are some of the key factors which gave India as a preferred location for setting up a call centre.
Some of the big companies which entered into Call centre business were initially Global Tele systems Ltd, Reliance group, Godrej Group, Hiranandani group.
These cos attaracted business from global giants such as ANZ Grindlays Bank, DSP Merill Lynch, Pan India, Johnson & Johnson, Nerolac paints, Mahindra & Mahindra, Essel World.
British Airways, Cap Gemini, Tachnecall, Swiss Air, American Express set us their call centres in India.
With a call center, the cost per contact is drastically lower compared to other media like personalized contacts, direct mailers and visual advertising, , adding that credit cards, debt collection, banking, telemarketing, mail order shopping, hospitality help desks and telecom service are some of the business segments where call centers have been identified as effective.
Many overseas companies also started setting up service providing centre like Global One(a joint venture of Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and Sprint) had tied up with Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) to offer complete hardware and software solutions for setting up a call centres by Indian private companies.
Experts pointed out that Indian Companies to be successful in call centre business has to adhere to top quality man power, understanding the culture and language of the clients is a key necessity. Hence the best call centres who adhered to these criteria survived and became successful in the future. According to National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), by 2008 on line services in India generated more than 1.1 million jobs and earned US$ 19 Billion in revenue.
Information Technology(I T)
IT industry in India is divided in two parts : IT Services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). This sector helped in increasing GDP from 1.2% in 1998 to 4.5 % in 2009 to 7.5% in 2012.
Vajpayee Govt in 1999 placed IT industry among top five priorities and formed the Indian National Task Force on Information Technology and Software development. The Information Technology Act 2000 created legal procedures for Electronic Transaction and E Commerce.
In the 1990s another set of Professional started migrating to USA and they all were IT sector and By 2000 almost 17 lakhs Professionals in this field were placed in USA. The rapid success of IT industry in India also had repercussions on the economy and also had far reaching implications on political scenario. India’s reputation both as source and destination of skilled work force in IT field helped India to improve relations with many world economies.
With India’s strength started growing in IT field, it was enable to form very close ties with USA and many countries of Europes India’s first IT Service Industry was born in Mumbai in 1967 with the establishment of Tata Group in partnership with Burroughs. The first Software Export zone SEEPZ was set up in 1973 in Mumbai. More than 80% of Software export was through SEEPZ in till 1980.
By middle of 1st decade of this century, many foreign companies started shifting their base to India or taking over/merging with Indian IT companies, as experienced man power was readily available in India.. IT industry started locating their offices to other cities of India also, where man power was available because of presence of Educational Institutions in the particular locations.
At present there are many IT hubs in the country and some of them are:
a.Bangalore- The city is now known as Silicon Valley of India and the IT Capital of India. Some of the top Indian IT Service providers like Infosys, Wipro, Mindtree, Mphasis are having head quarters in Bangalore. It is also company head quarter for so many world’s top firms like Intel, Texas Instrument, Bosch, Yahoo, SAP Labs, Continental and many more. This city houses 1/3rd of IT companies of India, which are almost 5000 in nos.
b.Hyderabad- The city is known as Hitec city of India of Cyberabad and is a major global IT hub and second largest IT exporter and largest Bioinformatics hub of India. It has become the first destination for the Microsoft centre in India and the largest software centre outside of their headquarters in USA. Microsoft, Facebook, Infosys, Google, TCS Computer Sciences Corpn, Accenture, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, Amazon, IBM, Dell etc, close to 3000 companies operate from the city.
3.Chennai- Some of the top companies who are having their operations in this city are- Accenture, Cognizant, TCS, Infosys, Syntel,Wiprp, Verizon, HCL, Amazon.com, eBay, Paypal, Polaris Capgemini and many more. This city has world class IT infrastructure with dedicated expressway named IT Expressway. Many IT parks are promoted by private entities also.
4.Mumbai- This city is commercial Capital of India. Headquarter of TCS is based here, which is country’s largest IT company. Other major IT companies based in the city are Capgemini, L&T Infotech,3i Infotech, Mastek, Oracle and many more.
5.Delhi- The national capital region consisting of Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon areas are many software/IT companies like TCS, Infosys, Mahindra, Symphony,Teleca, Cognizant, Ciena, Accenture, HCL, IBM, Systique, Aricent, Oracle, Sap and many more.
6.Pune- This city is having leading Indian and International IT servicing and Exporters. It is having one of the biggest IT Park at Hinjewadi. It is also known as Tech City, and is having many multinational companies such as TCS, Tech Mahindra, Capgemini, Syntel, Infosys, Cognizant, Cybage,Persistent, Mphasis, Wipro, HCL,Zensar, IBM, Red Hat, HSBC, BMC Software, L&T Infotech and many more.
The IT sector has also become a major employment generation centre, making it a very dominating player in IT global out sourcing sector. Our IT industry is currently providing low cost solution in the services business of Global IT.
Friends, I hope you liked this write up on this industrial sector of India.
Awaiting your views/comments/feed backs.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
24th Jan, 2019.
R. N. Mungale.
It Sector in India has scope for further growth.