Calling the Grassroots

BPO companies dot the skyline of Indias burgeoning metros with tall glass
buildings and swanky interiors and an air accented with American vocabulary. Is
there a true Indian BPO? The answer probably lies in the dusty villages of
Krishnagiri district, in Tamil Nadu. With the efforts of then Krishnagiri
collector and currently the MD of ELCOT, Dr Santhosh Babu has sowed the seeds of
rural BPO in 2007, whose fruits are realized now. Quips Babu, Its a very
unique initiative we have embarked together with Nasscom and Fostering
Technologies in Rural Areas (FOSTeRA) is opening up new vistas for the rural
youth. Our rural BPO which is done now through FOSTeRA is doing world class BPO
work.

Today FOSTeRA is a sixty plus seater facility spread across Uthangari taluk
and Hosur which comes under the Krishnagiri district. The BPO handles close to
eight processes like, insurance, data conversion, voice (credit card
collection), RPO, and other government related processes. Its got the US MNCs
to domestic banks as its clients. According to Ashok Kumar, CEO, FOSTeRA, We
have state-of-the-art data security methods and our agents converse in fluent
English. We provide three months training and one month on-the-job training and
put them in one of the processes. The success so far has defied our initial
expectations and we are working aggressively to extend it across all villages of
Tamil Nadu.

Innovative Model

FOSTeRAs success can well be measured by the industry accreditation its got
already. When Microsoft sometime back did the pilot project on the online
electoral roll registration, it used FOSTeRAs manpower. Says Ashok Kumar, The
data entry skills of the employees are amazing and they are able to do large
volumes of work with ease. Moreover, they are highly dedicated and work ethics
is indeed very high.

FOSTeRA is indeed a disruptive development that has upped the career bar of
the rural youth, who otherwise might have ended up in odd jobs in factories.
ELCOT is playing an instrumental role in fostering the rural BPO both in terms
of scale and size. Babu is aggressively working on making it a big success.
ELCOT is encouraging the entrepreneurs in rural Tamil Nadu to start similar BPO
ventures. The rural entrepreneurs will get the help from ELCOT as well as
Nasscom in getting the projects to the rural BPO and the idea is to seed many
initiatives like FOSTeRA across the state.

The subsequent rural BPO ventures would be lot easier to groom as FOSTeRA has
created a working model. The model here is one of hub-and-spoke and Uttangari
taluk acts as the hub. Here it will have maximum number of seats going forward.
This hub would be connected to other taluks like Maganrpatti, Singarapettari,
Samalpatti, Katteri, and Mitapalli. Kumar says, The number of seats is not an
issue; we are training the manpower and scaling aggressively as per the
demands.

Reaching the Rural Youth

As part of ELCOT and Nasscoms initiatives in setting up Finishing Schools
in about twenty-nine districts in Tamil Nadu which has set the target to train
more than 6,000 rural youth in English and other skills required for BPO kind of
work. Right now ELCOT is working on these finishing schools and training the
manpower.

Meanwhile FOSTeRA is aggressively working on adding more processes and
expanding across Tamil Nadu and many leading BPOs have evinced interest in
collaborating with FOSTeRA for tapping the rural potential. For instance, big
BPOs are looking at tier-2 for their expansion plans and entities like FOSTeRA
becomes an ideal partner for them to outsource certain work. And rural BPOs are
also a boon for governments too, with governments doing a lot of data mining
work for its internal projects now can outsource to agencies like FOSTeRA that
would be cost-effective at the same time can get professional help as well. The
business model that FOSTeRA has put in place is one that collaborates with large
BPOs and acts as a third party player. It has also started getting projects on
its own. In the last one year, FOSTeRA has done commendable work even on the
voice front mainly on the credit card collections for a bank.

Looking at the way FOSTeRA has evolved in the last one year, it has managed
the show pretty well so far. But some of the analysts point out that the
government and the agencies involved has to move up fast in scaling. The
finishing schools is a great initiative but even with the trained manpower,
there is a dearth of entrepreneurs to invest in a rural BPO as they are worried
about the long-term sustenance of these projects. Moreover, most of these
projects are so tied up with one individualfor instance in the FOSTeRA case
Babu was the key driver who made it happen by acting as the lobby with the
government. But when the key architects leave, the continuity of the projects
becomes an issue. e-Gov watchers argue that the government must put in place
succession strategies so that knowledge intensive initiatives like the rural BPO
projects will be seamlessly passed to successful incumbent irrespective of who
started the project.

Outlook

At the end of the day, FOSTeRA has created a proof point that the rural
youth with basic education can be molded into successful BPO employees. Its
really a remarkable achievement when we look at how these people have accustomed
themselves to modern technologies like VoIP, computer usage, and English
speaking skills. But still its the tip of the iceberg and one needs hundred of
FOSTeRAs to bridge the rural-urban divide in the real sense of the term.

Shrikanth G

shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in