45-year-old Raman Roy is widely regarded as the pioneer and guru of the IT-enabled services business in India, having played a pivotal role in proving the country’s stature as a locale for remote processing.
45-year-old Raman Roy is widely regarded as the pioneer and guru of the
IT-enabled services business in India, having played a pivotal role in proving
the country’s stature as a locale for remote processing. He has successfully
delivered servicing solutions from India and has led the Indian operations of
the two top players in this arena—GE Capital and American Express. In the
process, he has been instrumental in creating over 20,000 jobs in India
The Third Coming… As president and CEO, Wipro Spectramind, Raman Roy is responsible for the
company’s strategic direction and is the key driving force of the company’s
mission and business philosophy. 45-year-old Roy is widely regarded as the
pioneer and "guru" of the IT-enabled services business out of India,
having played a pivotal role in proving India as a locale for remote processing.
He has successfully delivered servicing solutions from India. He has led the
Indian initiatives of two of the largest players in this arena in India—GE
Capital and American Express—and has been associated with the creation of over
10,000 jobs in India to service the needs of organizations in USA, Europe,
Japan, Asia, Pacific and Australia.
Prior to Spectramind, Roy was associated with GE Capital where he led the
setting up of their flagship remote processing center. The center presently
employs over 7,500 local Indian employees. Roy was responsible for the
conceptualization and implementation of the initiatives including establishing
new global service businesses from India, which focussed on providing
comprehensive high value add process and service solutions to international
clients. He also played a key role in the structuring and setting up processing
capabilities for GE Capital’s joint ventures with Mastech USA and State Bank
of India—both of which involved the setting up of processing capabilities in
India.
Before his successful stint with GE Capital, Roy was the business leader of
accounting operations at American Express and played a played a key role in
setting up a global centralized accounting facility in India catering to Europe,
USA and the Japan Pacific Asia Australia region. The center presently employs
over 1,000 Indians and offers all aspects of accounting services to American
Express offices in USA, Europe, Japan, Asia, Pacific and Australia. Roy’s
contribution included evolving the strategy, designing and development of the
‘centralized’ center of excellence.
Raman is a chartered accountant from India and a chartered management
accountant from the UK. He is also a member of Nasscom and the CII Council of
ITeS.
If the world is making telephone calls to India today—calls that help make
careers and profits, and calls that have generated employment for nearly 200,000
people so far—there’s one man who has a lot to do with it. The frontrunner
of the IT-enabled services revolution in India, he has played a pivotal role in
selling and establishing the country’s stature as a locale for remote
processing. It is no surprise then, that the two largest companies in the
IT-enabled services segment, American Express and GE Caps, grew to their present
stature under him. The man to whom India owes all this, as well as this year’s
runaway ITeS growth, is Raman Roy.
But ask Roy—considered the ‘Indian Call Center Guru’—about the
beginnings, and he brushes it aside as a "mishap". "This entire
industry called ITeS happened by accident—with companies discovering that the
servicing capabilities that they had were far more valuable than they had
thought—for it is not the price, but quality that matters in any kind of
service. Around this time, while a lot of companies were exporting IT
professionals, some discovered non-IT talent but realized that this was not
exportable. This is where technology played a role, where people saw the
availability of technology that made distances irrelevant," says Roy. Amex
was among the first to see and pan on to the trend. "A lot of people said
AmEx had gone loony.
But the brave see what no one else does, and AmEx had that ability. It was a
great experience to work with Amex. I was part of the India team and just came
in with some ideas. It was the success of AmEx that made GE look at India as an
option."
Starting his career with Tata Consultancy Sevices in the eighties, young Roy
set up the financial services arm of Shivram Fibers. His tryst with BPO destiny
began when he joined American Express in 1984 and helped set up its automation
services. At Amex, Roy ran up the rungs of authority, notching up several firsts
for the global giant—he launched its Indian rupee card, US dollar card and
corporate card. Another milestone was his stint as head of operations in
technology at Amex.
Amex’s runaway success got American corporate giant General Electric to
look at India—and today, it is no surprise that GE asked Roy to spearhead its
international service as CEO. The road was tough, and as Roy himself admits, he
thought "he had made a mistake in joining GE". But the initial hiccups
only got him to think and work harder and smarter… In his own words—"We
managed to get some great results, but it was mostly because of the fabulous
company called GE." But GE’s was a captive unit—and when numerous
clients kept asking for a wider range of services, the entrepreneur in Roy
finally decided to take a closer look at the VCs lining up at his door. Soon
after, Spectramind eServices was born… the rest is recent history. Wipro
bought a major stake in Spectramind for a fantastic price—more than the splash
the sale made, it brought new credibility to a burgeoning but nascent industry.
An affirmation of Roy’s standing as an astute helmsman—he stays on to head
Wipro Spectramind.
And there’s a clear mission there, as Roy explains—"The objective is
to take Wipro Spectramind to where it deserves to be—as one of the established
global players in this space. India is a sleeping lion. I am proud to be an
Indian and I am proud to operate in the country. We will get there…"
An entrepreneur is born Roy started Spectramind eServices without a single customer—"…with
only a dream and VC funding". "We wanted to make a mark, create
something that was global and unique. The idea was not to be India-focussed, and
creating a global play excited us. People told me that I was mad to get a
building this big, and that it would never work. Today, the same people come and
tell me that I had great vision! I feel we were lucky—we had investors who
believed in us," says Roy. Post-acquisition, Wipro now owns 93% of Wipro
Spectramind. And while many wonder whether the sellout is just a precursor to
the entrepreneur in Roy taking off for fresher ventures, he rubbishes the idea.
"The sellout to Wipro is not the end, it is just a pit-stop. The journey
ahead remains a long one, and we are far from where we want to be. Being a part
of Wipro is an accelerator to the end objective—a huge accelerator."
And that ‘end objective’ he talks of is to be a global player in the BPO
space. "Today, we have 3,000 employees across four locations. And numbers
of around 3,000-4,000 mark the entry into the ‘global club’—so we have
just entered that club. There’s a long way to go ahead to make a mark, and we
are on track…" So does he consider himself successful? "Success?
What’s success—corporate achievements and financial stability? Not for me…
The way I look at success, it is my grandchild sitting on my knee, with me
telling him—‘This giant industry that you see today, your grandfather helped
create a part of it’."
The Third Coming…
