BPO – The Buzz is all around

The world is getting closer and especially when people are crossing borders as they never did before. One might experience India while in New York and an American will never feel out of place with all the McDonalds and Pizza Huts spread across in every major Indian city. Has this thing also got to do something with the spread of the BPOs’??

The Business Process Outsourcing (or the BPO) activity started gaining momentum in the 90’s decade in India and since then has become a large industry employing millions.  The sheer size of operations, volume of business and a high rate of attrition requires BPO companies to recruit more and more people.  People from traditional industries are not thinking twice before taking up a lucrative job in the BPO’s but the young turks, fresh out of college, are the prime target of all BPO outfits.

The majority work coming to India is from the United States.  India with a bulging English speaking workforce has been able to meet all recruitment needs of the BPO’s.     Though there is a simple logic attached to this, make Anjali-Anjela, Rahul-Raul and so on so forth.

BPOs’ dish out everything to make it employees feels at ease and when the employees are of the 18-25 age groups, it becomes a necessity.  From swanky offices to recreational facilities to multi-cuisine cafeterias, it’s all there to ensure employees have a good time while at work.

The Induction and training program of all BPO’s is a rigorous one and runs on a minimum for 1.5 months. New employees are taught everything and anything about America.  An accent training is given where the instructor teaches you to stress on the vowels and yes include as many slang as you can into your speech.  The love for Donughts, Pizzas, Coke and offcourse Hollywood is ignited.

As the pay packets in the industry are good at entry level, it gives a lot of freedom to the young BPO employees to live life as people their age do in America. Branded clothes and accessories, movies, fancy cars, vacations, night outs etc have become regulars for them.  The idea is to live life large and make the most of it.  The idea of savings and a settled life has taken a backseat.

But is this ideology, is this culture taking over the good of our Indian culture. There are different opinions on this issue and the common Indian feels threatened with this commonly termed “American Invasion”.  A significant Indian population is benefiting from the changing youth attitude and the increased financial freedom at a relatively young age. All should be ready to sacrifice few things for the betterment of things at large. Culture is what it always was, the Indian identity will remain, it’s just about taking the good of other cultures.