Out Of India — Required Video For All GSB 563 Students To Watch
May 28th, 2008
I have not written nearly enough about India on this blog, not because I am not interested and fascinated by the place, but because I just don’t know India; I only know a bit about China.
This short 60 Minutes segment, Out of India, is a required assignment for you to watch.
You will enjoy this video and will learn a lot. This segment also builds nicely on Mr. Asnani’s excellent talk with you a few weeks ago about his ecountant business, and, the call center in India we will also visit.
See also this related Wall Street Journal article that just came out, In India Parents Become Part of the Picture for Outsourcing Firms. Fascinating employee recruitment development, retention and HR issues are highlighted in this article as it applies to the outsourcing industry in India and the above video.
The world today is an amazing place. I can’t think of a better or more exciting time to be alive and in business.
Students, your thoughts?
Entry Filed under: Pre-Departure, China, India, Mumbai, New Delhi, Pre-Departure
8 Comments Add your own
1. Chris Carr | December 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Good comments thus far.
Let me jump in with something to think about as you watch this clip and reflect on it …
One of our job expectations as scholars in academia are to research questions that many assume have already been answered and are a given. Yet, when captured and measured, the data actually show that our fears and/or assumptions are greatly misplaced.
See, e.g., today’s Wall Street Journal article and book review on this book, Globalization: The Irrational Fear That Someone In China Will Take Your Job, by a Columbia University business school prof and one of his colleagues who is a historian.
Their research and book argue, among other things, that the data (which we all know is different then we we each speculate and say, “Well, it seems to me …”) show that job losses due to higher productivity — often the result of improving technology — greatly outnumber those lost to globalization.
Yet, let’s be honest — too many Americans are intellectually lazy and continue to believe the contrary. They often pin the blame on people and workers from countries with slanted eyes (Chinese) and/or dark skin (Indians). Said blame game makes it easy to shift responsibility from themselves and their own shortcomings to another, and plays right into “I am a victim” mentality. Each of you are one of the lucky few in this world — you are able to receive a graduate level education from an accredited, well-respected school and hence have the skills, ability, training and knowledge base to separate fact from fear mongering in this regard.
Since the beginning of time the world has been about change. Many, not all, of the winners in said environment are those people, firms and countries that are able to welcome and adapt to said change. Those that do not and fight to maintain the status quo are likely relegated to the dust bins of history.
If you wish to read the above book for your Spring quarter book review, I will add it to the approved list, and I look forward to your commentary and strength and weakness analysis of said book.
2. Alex Thornton | December 21st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Wow, that 60 minutes segment was from 2004. It feels like outsourcing has been going on for a lot longer. Granted, 60 minutes is probably slower to jump on the boat. In a way, this segment is almost novel in its nature, as outsourcing has become a fact of life.
The students learning English was highly amusing. I can just imagine what I sound like when I speak Japanese. Still, if you can’t tell who is responding to your service call, then practicing English is a great boon.
3. Lindsay Leaver | January 10th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Maybe it isn’t that 60 minutes is slow, maybe it is that the public is slow. Sometimes the public isn’t ready for things while they are happening. Guarantee people would flip if they knew their taxes were being done in India, but what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
Also re: America losing jobs and those people who blame India. Americans are intellectually lazy for the most part, but this is probably nothing new. Every time a wave a jobs leaves the United States, there are and will be those that complain about it. But there will also be a select few who see it as an opportunity, seize it, and create new jobs for those who aren’t smart enough to do it themselves. This just seems to be the way the world works. We can’t all be innovative and we can’t all be in the middle. It is a balance that has happened before, and it will happen again.
4. Tim Lynds | January 23rd, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Aside from being mildly entertained by this segment, there was no new value in it for me. All of the same material was covered in depth in The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman, which I read for the fall quarter book review. Being a typical intellectually lazy American, I would have much rather obtained this information from watching the 60 Minutes clip than from actually sitting down and reading a book (which I mostly listened to on tape).
In addition to being intellectually lazy, there are people who are flat out xenophobes who are afraid of foreigners. This fear leads to bias and this bias leads to anger when their jobs are outsourced. This anger strengthens the biases and can lead to racism. Though I do not condone such bigotry, it is easy to understand where it comes from - ignorance, laziness, and the need to blame someone for personal hardships.
5. Jason Silver | February 14th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
This intellectual laziness can also stem from complacency. America has been such a dominant global force, that at the first sign of other countries emerging to challenge our economic position, most of the population goes crazy. The majority of this country can’t understand that other countries are doing what America did ages ago, growing into major world powers. The responsibility lies with us. It is our job to become educated about such issues and to understand where to properly focus the negative energy (into something productive).
6. Phil Hamer | February 16th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
It true. Long before low paying customer service rep jobs were being lost to India, they were being lost to the automated system. In the 90s the main complaint you would hear from people was “Why can’t I just talk to real person!” or that they were on hold for 45 minutes.
Now that we do get to talk to a real person and hold times have been dramatically shortened, we complain that the person is from a different country, and that our jobs that we didn’t want and couldn’t afford are being stolen.
7. Chase Janvrin | March 7th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Tim I love your honesty! Although I wasn’t able to get the video to work, I read the 60 Minutes bit online with a google search. I agree with Tim and some of the others, this is obviously a bit dated. It’s no longer news that America outsources these services to India, nor is it a secret that many Americans don’t like it. However, I think we’re now at the tail end of the transitional period. I may be one of the few students on this trip that remember when answering machines first came out, and how everyone HATED getting the machine. It was so impersonal, and inconvenient to have to leave a message. How frustrating is it now when someone DOESN’T have a voice mail option? Everything takes a little getting used to, and in another year or two nobody will care or even notice that we’re speaking with an Indian about a customer service issue. They’ll probably do a better job anyway.
8. Chris Phippen | March 12th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
I agree with Alex and Tim, this is definitely outdated information. It is commonplace now to hear an Indian accent on the other end of the phone line when you call customer service or tech support for pretty much any company.
While I do still hear the occasional comment about jobs being “stolen by foreigners”, it is becoming quite rare. I think Chase is right and there was an adjustment period necessary and now that outsourcing has become the norm, those Americans who are “intellectually lazy” have realized that evil, conniving India hasn’t stolen our jobs. Weird.
Personally, I think outsourcing is a great idea and in some industries it is crucial to remain competetive. My only gripe is that not all outsourcing operators speak English as well as the ones in this video clip. I’m sure we’ve all experienced this problem at least once: you have to hang up and try again because you simply cannot understand the person who is helping you. This could have serious implications for a consumer’s relationship with that company. Chase may again be right about being in the tail end of this transitional period, but there may be some advances yet to be made with regard to the language barrier.
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