Socially Responsible Outsourcing

There is never a shortage of three-letter words coined by the services
industry and it was amusing to discover a new one at the Orlando Conference of
the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP). A full track
at the conference had been named as socially responsible outsourcing (SRO) and
it is quite interesting to see the quantum of research and discussion this area
is attracting among academicians and practitioners of outsourcing in the US
today.

SRO goes beyond the allocation of funds to corporate social responsibility
(CSR), which may be adequate for more traditional industry sectors, but would
not do justice to an industry which prides itself on its influence on so many
sectors and geographies. The imperative to enable education, healthcare and
amenities to the communities in which we live and build our campuses and
technology centers has been recognized by most of the significant industry
players with the Nasscom Foundation providing a platform for many smaller
companies to contribute to worthy causes. The Nasscom Knowledge Network
initiative which has enabled rural India to access high quality content and
skills, and also the recognition provided in the recent India Leadership Forum
to small companies, which have demonstrated that the industry cares, demonstrate
the willingness of our industry to extend a helping hand to all the
underprivileged constituencies around us.

With the specter of protectionism rearing its ugly head now and again as the
western economies struggle to provide jobs for many Americans and Europeans, SRO
is becoming an imperative tool. Our own companys efforts that includeeducating
and empowering young South Africans in Johannesburg; collaborating with the
University of Essex, UK and the University of Wollongong, Australia to enable
research and best practice sharing for IT entrepreneurship; and including our
customers in the establishment of childrens education facilities in the cities
of Pune and Hyderabad where we operatehave been hailed in many quarters. All
this and more needs to be done to give back to the societies in which our
customers operate and enable their countries to cater to the talent surplus that
exists as well as the customer deficit that plagues some of the under-served
parts of Africa and Asia even today.

The IAOP chapters that are soon starting up in India will enable outsourcing
best practices not just in IT and BPO, but also in sectors such as engineering,
pharma, healthcare and real estate to be shared across a wider community.

Perhaps the most rewarding moment of the IAOP conference for me was the
induction of Dewang Mehta into the IAOP Hall of Fame. Michael Corbett, founder
of IAOP spoke warmly of Mehtas contributions to the fledgling industry in its
formative years. While receiving the award on behalf of Mehta and Nasscom, it
was my privilege to recount to the three hundred plus audience of American and
European sourcing chiefs the early years of Nasscom and the confidence with
which Mehta led many of us to believe that we would achieve the $50 bn exports
goala prize which is ours for the taking in 2010. The strength and resilience
of Nasscom is a testimony to the institution building capability of Dewang
Mehta. His name will truly be etched in golden lettersin the history of the
Indian IT and business services industry. His clarion call Roti Kapda Makan
Bijli aur Bandwidth for the betterment of Indias fortune is valid today and
the search for an inclusive India will need evangelists of the caliber of Mehta
to take the IT agenda forward in the next decade.

Ganesh Natarajan

The author is Vice Chairman & MD of Zensar Technologies. He can be reached
at maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in