1

1. Origins of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO)

Although a few companies began providing high-end, knowledge-based services from India in 1997, this

trend did not gain momentum until six years later. In September 2003, Evalueserve first coined the term

Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), and in January 2004, I gave a talk at Telcordia Laboratories in

New Jersey that “defined” this industry and provided its growth estimates until 2011. Eventually, the

contents of this talk were summarized in an Evalueserve article titled “The Next Big Opportunity –

Moving Up the Value Chain – From BPO to KPO” that was published on July 13, 2004 [1, 2].

Whereas the processes outsourced (e.g., payroll processing, call center work, and accounting) as a part of

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) require little domain knowledge, require very few “judgment calls”,

and can be usually executed by someone with a high-school diploma, KPO related work requires deeper

domain knowledge and making “judgment calls” in order to achieve better outcomes. Hence, most

professionals involved in KPO have a post-graduate degree (e.g., MBA, Masters in Law, Masters in

Engineering or Computer Science, and Masters or PhD in Pharmaceuticals) and the more work-

experience they have in their domain, the better results they can produce. Finally, since the work in KPO

is domain related, typically a professional working in one of its sub-domain (e.g., intellectual property)

will not be able to work effectively in another domain (e.g., doing research related to gas production).

Since the publishing of the first article on KPO in July 2004 [1], the acronym KPO has become part of the

lexicon of the outsourcing industry worldwide. In addition to the nine articles written by Evalueserve on

this topic, more than two hundred independent articles have been written by others (such as Deloitte

Consulting, TPI, NASSCOM and PwC). Furthermore, there are at least six firms that have KPO as part of

their name; several conferences are held every year on KPO; more than 103 captive units of large

multinational companies are providing KPO services from India to their offices in other countries;

majority of midsized and large IT (Information Technology) and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)

firms in India have a KPO division; and there are at least 182 “niche” companies in India that provide

third-party KPO services.

Historically, our estimates showed that in 2001, the entire KPO industry in India had only 9,000

professionals who generated approximately USD 260 million in revenue; however, this industry had

already grown to approximately 75,000 professionals by 2007. 1

The Indian KPO sector barely grew

during the great recession of 2008-09 but it is likely to have 166,000 professionals by the end of 2014

who will generate annual revenue of approximately USD 6.21 billion. 2

So, overall, during 2001-2014,

this sector has grown approximately 24 times, i.e., at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27% -

1 These professionals do not include those who may be working onshore (i.e., outside India) and the revenue of

onshore professionals is not included either. 2 Annual revenues for the Indian KPO industry for the years 2001, 2007 and 2014 are not comparable because one

US Dollar was approximately equal to 48 Indian Rupees in 2001, to 40 Indian Rupees in 2007, and is likely to equal

61 Indian Rupees in 2014. For estimating the revenue in 2020, we have assumed that one US Dollar will equal 72

Indian Rupees.

Data Analytics Outsourcing to India:

Does the Emperor have any Clues?

Dr. Alok Aggarwal

Chairman and Chief Data Scientist

Scry Analytics, California, USA

Office: +1 408 872 1078; Mobile: +1 914 980 4717

Alok.Aggarwal@Scryanalytics.com

November 18, 2014

2

28%. Finally, during the past 13 years, India has generated approximately 70% of the revenue of the

global KPO industry and our models show that India’s preeminence in this field will continue until 2020,

and perhaps beyond. Hence, India will continue to be the “king,” nay, the “Emperor” in this area.

Within the KPO industry, some sub-sectors such as investment research and business research

outsourcing services grew very quickly during 2001 and 2007, whereas, others like legal process

outsourcing services grew fairly rapidly during 2006 and 2013 [3]. Various sub-sectors of KPO that were

included in the 2004 article [1] and our current forecasts regarding their growth are given in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Expected Growth of India’s KPO Industry 2014 - 20203:

Description of Sub-segment Revenue in 2014 No. of professionals Revenue in 2020 No. of professionals

Expected, Millions USD Expected, 2014 Expected, Millions USD Expected, 2020

Banking, Securities & Insurance Research $ 890 22,000 $ 1,500 38,000

Data Management, Mining, & Analytics $ 1,225 33,000 $ 3,300 87,000

Business & Consulting Research $ 520 13,000 $ 975 23,500

Human Resources - Research & Analytics $ 50 1,000 $ 125 2,500

Market Research & Competitive Intelligence $ 175 6,000 $ 330 12,000

Architecture, Environment Design etc. $ 320 9,000 $ 600 15,500

Game-design & Animation services $ 255 7,000 $ 480 13,500

Legal, Paralegal & Intellectual Property $ 425 13,000 $ 800 23,000

Scientific & Medical Content Publishing $ 70 1,500 $ 130 2,500

Remote Education, Publishing, Writing $ 900 30,000 $ 1,130 36,000

Contract Research & Clinical Trial Services $ 1,020 22,000 $ 2,000 39,000

Translation and Localization $ 75 2,000 $ 140 3,500

Marketing & Sales Support, Answering RFPs $ 20 500 $ 40 1,000

Remote Logistic services & Procurement $ 160 4,000 $ 300 7,500

Network Optimization & Analytics $ 105 2,000 $ 265 5,500

TOTAL $ 6,205 166,000 $ 12,115 310,000

Going forward, our estimates show that overall the KPO outsourcing industry in India is expected to

grow from 166,000 professionals and USD 6.21 billion in revenue in 2014 to 310,000 professionals and

USD 12.12 billion in 2020, which would imply 12% CAGR approximately for the next six years. The

only exception is the sector related to data management, data mining, and analytics, which is expected

to grow from 33,000 professionals and USD 1.23 billion in revenue in 2014 to 87,000 professionals and

USD 3.3 billion in revenue in 2020, thereby implying 18% CAGR. Although an annual growth rate of

18% for the next six years is nothing to sneeze, it is a far cry from the hype that has been created about

such data analytics outsourcing services from India. In the remaining article, we discuss the hype,

myths, and reality related to outsourcing of these data-management related services.

This article is partitioned in five sections. In section 2, we describe the data-information-knowledge

pyramid and the work-flow that is needed to solve various business problems related to analytics. Section

3 Many other organizations and consulting firms do not include contract research and clinical trial services as part of

KPO and they also do not include architectural and design services either. However, we have included these sub-

sectors in order to maintain consistency with the 2004 article [1]. Finally, in our estimates, architectural and

environmental design does not include engineering design, which in itself is a very large area of outsourcing.

3

2 also discusses missing gaps in this value chain when it comes to Indian companies. In section 3, we

discuss seven myths related to this sector; for example, we point out that India does not have experienced

analytics professionals that can help in reducing the shortage of experienced analytics professionals in the

United States. Section 4 discusses the potential negative impact of the immigration bill that is pending in

the United States as well as the U.S. government investigations with respect to Infosys and Mu Sigma

regarding potential visa fraud. Finally, Section 5 concludes by stating that since the hype and myths

related to the data analytics outsourcing sector have little connection to reality, these may lead this sector

from boom to bust!

2. The Data-Information-Knowledge Pyramid and Big Data Science

During the last few years, Data Management and Analytics as well as Big Data Science have been often

used interchangeably. Hence, for the sake of completeness, we first define the terms, Big Data and Big

Data Science, and then discuss the workflow and value-chain related to these areas.

The phrase “Big Data” was first coined in 2001 by Doug Laney, a research analyst at Meta Group (now a

part of Gartner) to describe the growth and challenges that are related to data as being three-dimensional,

viz., increasing volume (i.e., amount of data), velocity (i.e., speed of data coming in and going out), and

variety (i.e., range of data types and sources) [4]. In 2012, Laney updated his definition as follows: "Big

data is high volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information assets that require new forms of

processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery and process optimization” [5]. Hence,

unlike traditional analytics, Big Data includes both structured and unstructured data that may be stored in

relational and non-relational databases. Since traditional analytics and business intelligence areas only

handle structured data, Big Data Science is clearly a superset of these areas. In this article, we include all

kinds of data and databases that are related to Big Data Science, which requires the following:

Data management, which includes data cleansing, munging, wrangling, and harmonizing, as well

as providing insights using this data for analyzing a given business problem.

Building algorithms using math and statistics (e.g., linear, log, and multilevel regressions,

decision trees, generalized linear models, CART) as well as computer science (e.g., neural

networks, k-nearest neighbor algorithms, classification, supervised/unsupervised learning

algorithms, support vector machines, random forests, natural language processing, and graph

theoretical algorithms) and then fine-tuning and deploying them for a given business problem.

Domain knowledge related to the business problem being solved. Without such domain

knowledge, data scientists would lose the “essence” of the underlying problem and hence would

be unable to provide corresponding solutions or insights.

Five key phases in the workflow in Big Data Science for solving a business problem are given below and

can be well understood by using the classical data-information-knowledge pyramid given in Figure 2 [6].

2.1. Data Transformation and Management: Given a specific business problem that needs to be solved,

the first and foremost task is to have “good” data that can be used for its analysis. Traditional Extract-

Transform-Load (ETL) based approaches push structured data from transactional Enterprise Resource

Planning, Customer Relationship Management and other systems into data warehouses and almost all the

work performed in this regard requires no domain knowledge. Our estimates show that out of 33,000

professionals employed in the data management and analytics outsourcing industry in India today,

approximately 18,000 professionals are employed in the ETL and SQL querying areas who are adept at

handling structured data and doing lower end cleansing work; furthermore, for doing such work, Indian

firms charge between $50,000 and $60,000 per professional per year. However, going forward, given the

characteristics of “Big Data” and the “3Vs” related to it, i.e., volume, velocity, and variety (particularly

with respect to variety related to structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data), our estimates show

that at least two-thirds of all the work in the five phases of this workflow will be actually spent in Big

Data cleansing, munging, wrangling, and harmonizing, which in turn, will depend largely on the domain

4

knowledge of the professionals doing this work. Since most outsourcing companies from India still use

old ETL approaches for data cleansing and do not have domain experts, they run the risk of becoming less

relevant. Furthermore, since these professionals do not have much experience in working with – or in

writing algorithms to cleanse and harmonize – unstructured data, they cannot be used for such intense

data work that is specific to a given domain or a sector.

Figure 2: “Data-Information-Knowledge-Insights-Action” Pyramid

2.2. Descriptive Analytics and Business Intelligence for Converting Data to Information: For a given

business problem, once all of the data has been cleansed, harmonized, and stored in an appropriate

database, descriptive analytics can be done so as to derive and display relevant information. Indeed, by

choosing one of the more than fifty business intelligence software tools, an analyst can display historical

information (e.g., how sales revenue is going up or down for a sales team). Our estimates show that out of

33,000 professionals in this industry in India, approximately 10,000 are employed in business intelligence

(BI) and visualization areas and these professionals typically use Pentaho, Cognos, Business Objects,

Tableau, Qlikview, or home grown solutions that are usually based on Open Source Software. In fact,

more than 80% of the professionals employed by most niche players in India are performing either BI or

ETL activities, and, depending upon their experience, Indian firms charge between $50,000 and $60,000

per professional per year. Again, since these professionals do not have much experience in working with

semi-structured or unstructured data, they cannot be used for displaying such data (e.g., as graphs

containing vertices and edges).

2.3. Predictive Analytics for Providing Knowledge: The next phase in solving a given business problem

is by using predictive analytics, which comprises of statistical and computer science techniques to analyze

cleansed and harmonized data, thereby, gaining knowledge and making predictions about future events.

Our estimates show that out of 33,000 professionals employed in the data management and analytics

industry in India, less than 4,000 are adept at using these techniques, and even in this case, most of them

simply use commercially available software packages (e.g., SAS or SPSS); such professionals are

typically charged at $55,000 to $65,000 per person per year. On the other hand, the Big Data Science

sector is rapidly being transformed by using “R”, Python, and Machine Learning, and therein lays a great

5

chasm that Indian companies need to bridge. Furthermore, for gaining knowledge and making predictions,

Big Data Scientists need to have deep domain knowledge and contextual background of the business

problem being solved, which is by and large non-existent in India.

2.4. Generating Actionable Insights: The fourth phase includes prescriptive analytics and generating

actionable insights, thereby, providing decision support. If the data scientists working on a given business

problem understand the domain well, they can build and run their analytic algorithms for alternate

scenarios in order to improve key performance indicators related to a business problem. Of course,

depending on the domain and the business problem, such key indicators may include increasing revenue

or reducing cost, ensuring compliance, reducing risk, and improving timeliness, quality, and customer

experience. However, given that the Indian analytics industry is quite nascent and there is massive job-

hopping in this industry (Cf. Section 4), out of 33,000 professionals today, there are less than 1,000 data

scientists who have the required math, statistics, and computer science backgrounds and the required

domain expertise to generate such insights. Most such data scientists exist in niche’ firms who have less

than 100 employees that charge $120,000 to $150,000 for each such data scientist per year.

2.5. Acting on the Actionable Insights: The fifth and final phase in this workflow involves acting upon

the actionable insights that were generated in the previous phase. Clearly, this task cannot be done from

India and has to be done onsite either by the end-client or by external consultants used by the client.

During this phase, issues related to correlation versus causation become extremely important and hence

having the required domain knowledge becomes even more critical to the overall success of the project.

Of course, once clients have acted upon these insights, they may embark on one or more business

problems in the same or different areas or they may decide to analyze the same problem on a periodic

basis by using additional internal or external data, in which case, the entire work-flow would be repeated.

3. Myths about Outsourcing of Data Analytics Services from India

A 2011 report from McKinsey Global Institute [7] states that by 2018 in the United States, “demand for

deep analytical positions in big data world could exceed the supply …. by 140,000 to 190,000 positions.

Furthermore, this type of talent is difficult to produce, taking years of training with someone with

intrinsic mathematical abilities…. In addition, we project a need for 1.5 million additional managers and

analysts in the United States who can ask the right questions and consume the results of the analysis of

big data effectively. The United States …. cannot fill this gap by simply changing the graduate

requirements and waiting for people to graduate with more skills or by importing talent…”

In India, since most professionals who have a math, engineering or computer science background end up

joining IT services firm, and since for the next six years, these firms will require approximately 1.2

million new employees, our estimates show that it would be hard for data analytics related areas to attract

and retain more than 54,000 new employees. Hence, the data management and analytics outsourcing

industry in India will be more constrained by the supply of experienced professionals than by the demand

that may exist around the world. Given this backdrop, following are seven myths related to outsourcing of

data analytics services from India:

Myth Number 1 - Shortage of Data Scientists in the U.S can be fulfilled by those in India: According to

Robert Charrete [8], the United States actually produces more than 440,000 graduates and post-graduates

every year in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) areas, and according to the U.S.

Commerce Department, there are 7.6 million professionals working in these areas [8]. However, as per

the McKinsey Global Institute, most of these professionals do not have the experience or expertise to be

Data Scientists and it takes several years to develop these intrinsic capabilities [7]. If the United States is

going to have a shortage of Data Scientists because its professionals either do not have the appropriate

math/computer science skills or the appropriate domain expertise then this problem will be even more

exacerbated in India. Furthermore, since Indian domestic firms are still not using analytics for their own

6

businesses, it is very hard for Indian professionals to leapfrog and acquire the domain expertise regarding

such business problems.

Myth Number 2 - Graduates in India can be converted into Data Scientists by providing 3-6 months of

training: Many firms in India, especially those that are “pure play” firms, have started training their

employees by providing them a three to six months course related to analytics and Big Data Science.

Although such training is laudable and will certainly help in developing this nascent area, it is a far cry

from calling such professionals Big Data Scientists or even experienced analysts. In fact, it is far worse

when these niche firms hype up their training departments and call them “Universities.” Not only is this a

travesty of the Indian education system, it is patently illegal since accreditation from an appropriate

government body is compulsory for all universities except those created by the Indian Parliament [9].

Myth Number 3 – Data Management and Analytics Professionals from India can be charged at almost

the same rates as those in the U.S: Most analytics professionals in India lack mature domain expertise

and they have little experience in high-end statistical techniques (e.g., Bayesian), in artificial intelligence

algorithms or in Python language. Hence, at least for the near future, such professionals will be only

relegated to doing lower end work, thereby, earning the same kinds of salaries as those in other areas of

KPO. Keeping this in view, the end-clients in the U.S. and other developed countries will have to do

substantial due-diligence to see whether an Indian firm has the required domain expertise or if it can only

perform lower end work. And, the best hope for the Indian outsourcing industry is that the managers at

the clients’ end in the U.S. or Europe partition their business problems into sub-problems and the give

these sub-problems to professionals in India, thereby, saving 70% in costs for solving these sub-problems.

Myth Number 4 - Attrition within the Analytics Outsourcing Industry in India is low: Like other sub-

sectors of KPO, attrition in data analytics is approximately 30%, which implies that most data analytics

firms have become “hiring and training machines.” Reasons for higher attrition include late-night working

schedule (which destroys analysts’ work-life balance), boredom with low-end work, and the continued

shortage of such professionals in India. Shortage of such professionals also implies a continued pressure

on wages, thereby, ensuring job-hopping by professionals for a mere wage increase of 15%-20%.

Unfortunately, this shortage will continue for at least the next six years because less than ten universities

and colleges in India are currently offering – or thinking of offering – degrees in this area, which in turn,

is due to an acute shortage of professors in this area. Unfortunately, attrition and “job hopping” further

reduces the acquisition of domain expertise because whenever professionals leave a firm to join another,

they end up learning very little during the last two months of the firm they are leaving and the first two

months of the firm that they are joining.

Myth Number 5 – This time it is different with Data Analytics Outsourcing: In fact, exactly the opposite

is true. Most analytics firms in India are currently following the old beaten path of FTE (Full-Time

Equivalent) pricing and providing these professionals in a staff augmentation mode. Furthermore, like

other sectors of KPO, because there are very few barriers to entry and because the capital requirements of

starting a data analytics firm are very low, there are already more than 180 organizations, which are either

pure-play analytics firms or analytics divisions of larger companies (Cf. Appendix). Clearly, small and

nimble players can keep their overheads (e.g., Sales, General and Administration expenses) low, thereby,

undercutting others and ensuring a race to the bottom with respect to both prices and profit margins.

Hence, just like the other sub-sectors of KPO and ITO, firms in the data analytics sector are already

beginning to witness an LTM-EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization

for the Last Twelve Months) of 20%-22% with respect to the last twelve months’ (LTM) revenue and this

trend will become even more pronounced in the future.

Myth Number 6 – By creating a few APIs or home-grown visualization software, a Data Analytics

Services company can stand out: In order to differentiate themselves from the pack of the 180 or more

7

analytics companies and divisions in India, several niche companies have started creating “software

macros” or home-grown visualization software. Overall, this seems to be a great move but because there

are already more than 50 visualization software companies in the world, it is not clear that building home-

grown visualization software would help them unless their software is really intuitive and captivating with

a broad appeal. In our view, if the Indian firms really want to differentiate themselves, they would need to

spend significantly more time in developing domain expertise among their professionals or “pivot” their

firms to creating end-to-end solutions.

Myth Number 7 – Valuations for Analytics Outsourcing Companies will be significantly higher than

other KPO companies: Since analytics firms in India are doing low-end analytics work and lack mature

domain expertise, comparison of such companies to Splunk or Palantir seems far-fetched; indeed, Palantir

has deep domain expertise in defense, law enforcement, banking and insurance sectors, whereas, Splunk

has deep expertise in “machine data” that is being generated by “Internet of Things”. Also, according to

our estimates, most KPO companies in India are likely to grow at approximately 12% CAGR for the next

six years and their current valuation would be around 11 to 12 times LTM-EBITDA. Hence, it is hard to

see how the corresponding valuation for the corresponding data analytics services firms in India would be

more than 16-18 times LTM-EBITDA, especially when they are likely to grow at 18% CAGR (for the

next six years).

4. Pending Immigration Bill in the United States and Some Recent Investigations

The Immigration Reform Bill that is pending in the United States and that may be taken up sometime in

2015 has the following clauses, which may have a more pronounced effect for data analytics outsourcing

firms than those providing IT outsourcing, BPO and other KPO services:

(1) The Outplacement clause in the proposed bill disallows firms having more than 15% employees

on H1B visas to send their H1B employees to work at their client sites. We believe that this

clause will hurt the data analytics firms the most since in many cases, clients do not allow their

data to leave their premises, which would imply that such H1B employees would have no way of

working with such data. Furthermore, unless data analytics professionals are sitting with a client

analyst or a manager, they are unlikely to understand the business problem or its context deeply.

Finally, since many niche data analytics firms from India already have more than 15% of their

overall employees in the US on H1B visas, their business could get affected substantially. Hence

it is not surprising that in the IT outsourcing industry, Infosys has already started moving onsite

work in the US to India or near-shore destinations in a move to de-risk itself in case the proposed

immigration bill becomes law [10].

(2) The proposed immigration bill would also phase in the 50/50 rule over three years: this could

prohibit firms from receiving additional work visas if more than 50 percent of their workforce is

comprised of guest-workers with H-1B or L-1 visas.

Since Data Analytics and Big Data Science area requires most managers and analysts to be onsite (for

understanding the business problem and working with associated data), the above mentioned pending

immigration bill and the following investigations by the U.S. Government with respect to Infosys and Mu

Sigma for visa fraud may cast a dark shadow on this area.

In 2011, the United States Government accused Infosys of using workers with a B-1 visa (which only

allows temporary entry for business purposes) to perform skilled labor jobs in the United States. The U.S.

Government said that these jobs should have been performed by workers with H1-B or L-1 visas only, the

appropriate visas for foreign nationals to enter the U.S. to perform such skilled jobs. In October 2013,

Infosys eventually entered into a settlement with the U.S. Government to settle allegations of systemic

fraud and abuse of immigration processes and agreed to pay USD 34 million as a penalty [11, 12].

8

Similarly, in 2014, Mu Sigma confirmed that the U.S. Government is investigating allegations whether

Mu Sigma has engaged in visa fraud. The investigation into Mu Sigma is reminiscent of the one filed

against Infosys mentioned above, and it is not clear as to how this case will turn out [13, 14].

5. Conclusion

Clearly, the future of the data analytics outsourcing industry in India is bright; however, as discussed

above, the hype and myths around this industry seem to have little – or no connection – to reality, which

may lead this industry from a boom to a bust! Unfortunately, if this industry goes bust then not only will

all data analytics outsourcing firms and their employees suffer, it will also preclude India from becoming

a “Giant” and gain a near “Emperor” status in this area as it has become in the Information Technology

field. According to a recent study by IDC [15], there were 29 million workers in the ICT (Information and

Communication Technology) areas in 2013 out of which 10.4% were present in India, making it the

second largest reservoir of such professionals after the United States of America that has 22% of all such

workers. Such a prowess not only helps India in its domestic and exports IT industry but also helps in

other industries. For example, most experts believe that the reason why Indian scientists were successful

in their first mission of sending a spaceship, Mangalyaan, to Mars for a meagre expense of USD 74

million (whereas Japan and China failed) was mainly due to their IT expertise and the ability to simulate

many required processes on a computer [16].

6. References [1] “The Next Big Opportunity – Moving Up the Value Chain – From BPO to KPO” by Alok Aggarwal

and Abhishek Pandey, July 2014. Original report can obtained from

http://www.asiapacificdirect.com.au/big_opportunity_moving_up_the_value_chain%20-

%20from_bpo_to_kpo.pdf or generally from the Internet.

[2] All original KPO articles written by Evalueserve authors are available on the Internet. Also, the

original articles written by Alok Aggarwal can be obtained from Alok.Aggarwal@scryanalytics.com

[3] “Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) – Hype vs. Reality: An Evalueserve Analysis” by Alok

Aggarwal, January 2006. An executive summary can also be downloaded from

http://legallyours.blogspot.com/2006/01/legal-process-outsourcing-lpo-hype-vs.html

[4] "3D Data Management: Controlling Data Volume, Velocity and Variety" by Douglas Laney, Meta

Group (now a part of Gartner), February 2001. http://blogs.gartner.com/doug-

laney/files/2012/01/ad949-3D-Data-Management-Controlling-Data-Volume-Velocity-and-Variety.pdf

[5] "The Importance of 'Big Data': A Definition" by Douglas Laney, Gartner, June 2012. The original

report can be downloaded from http://www.gartner.com/resid=2057415

[6] “DIKW Pyramid,” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIKW_Pyramid

[7] “Big Data: The Next Frontier for Competition, Innovation, and Productivity,” by James Manyika,

Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, Charles Roxburgh, and Angela Hung

Byers, McKinsey Global Institute, May 2011.

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/big_data_the_next_frontier_for_innovation

[8] “Higher Education Accreditation,” Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation

9

[9] “The STEM Crisis is a Myth,” by Robert N. Charette, August 2013. http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-

work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth

[10] “Infosys begins moving work out of US over immigration Bill fears,” by K. Giriprakash, The

Hindu Business Line, January 2014. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-

tech/infosys-begins-moving-work-out-of-us-over-immigration-bill-fears/article5550063.ece

[11] “Infosys Agrees to Record U.S. Immigration Settlement,” by Aaron Smith, October 2013, CNN

Money. http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/30/news/companies/infosys-immigration-settlement/

[12] “Indian Company Under Scrutiny Over US Visas,” By Julia Preston and Vikas Bajaj, June 2011,

New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/us/22infosys.html?pagewanted=all

[13] “US Government Investigating Mu Sigma for Visa Usage,” by PTI, March 2014, Economic Times.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-03-09/news/48051212_1_mu-sigma-founder-

business-visas-government

[14] “Dhiraj Rajaram-founded Illinois Firm, Mu Sigma, Being Investigated for Visa Fraud,” by Deepak

Chitnis, March 2014, The American Bazaar. http://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2014/03/21/dhiraj-

rajaram-founded-illinois-firm-mu-sigma-investigated-visa-fraud/

[15] “2014 Worldwide Software Developer and ICT-Skilled Worker Estimates,” Report by IDC,

December 2013. Some details of this report can be found at

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=244709

[16] “Mars Orbiter Mission,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission

About the Author: Dr. Alok Aggarwal received his Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University in Electrical

Engineering and Computer Science in 1984, after which he joined IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center in

New York. During 1992 and 1996, along with others, he built and sold a "Supply Chain Management

Solution" for paper mills and steel mills, and won the Daniel H. Wagner prize for Excellence in

Operations Research Practice from INFORMS in 1998. He started IBM’s India Research Laboratory in

Delhi in April 1998 and grew it to 30 PhDs and 30 Masters by October 2000. In December 2000, he “co-

founded” Evalueserve and was its chairman during December 2000 – January 2014; this company

provides knowledge process outsourcing services from higher-cost countries to lower-cost ones and has

approximately 3,100 professionals worldwide. He founded Scry Analytics in February 2014

(www.scryanalytics.com). He has published 104 research articles and has been granted 8 patents from the

US Patents and Trademark Office. Dr. Aggarwal has been quoted extensively by Wall Street Journal and

other newspapers and magazines and is a distinguished alumnus of IIT Delhi.

About Scry Analytics (www.scryanalytics.com): In English, "Scry" means "crystal ball gazing” or

“fortune telling”. Scry Analytics provides end-to-end predictive and prescriptive analytics solutions and

services for business problems that arise in the services industry. In addition to using traditional ETL-

based approaches that push data from transactional ERP and CRM systems into data warehouses, Scry

Analytics also builds and uses its proprietary algorithms and software for data transformation and master

data management. In addition, Scry Analytics (a) codifies workflows in services and related domains so

that they are well-defined & repeatable, (b) provides its proprietary data that improve the key

performance indicators and the characteristics of such systems, and (c) uses its Big Data Science platform

to build decision support systems that improve these work-flows. Scry Analytics has offices in Silicon

Valley, California; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; and Delhi-Gurgaon, India.

10

Disclaimer: Although the author has tried to ensure that the information contained in this article has been

obtained from reliable sources, neither the author nor Scry Analytics, Inc. is responsible for any errors,

omissions, completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of this information or of the results obtained from its

use. In no event will the author or Scry Analytics, Inc. be liable for any decision made -- or action taken --

in reliance on the information given in this article.

Appendix: List of Firms and Divisions Of Firms Doing Data Analytics in India

No Company Name Website

1 24/7, Inc www.247-inc.com

2 Absolutdata www.absolutdata.com

3 Abzooba www.abzooba.com

4 Accenture www.accenture.com/in-en/Pages/index.aspx

5 Actiknow consulting www.actiknow.com

6 Activecubes (Now Blue Star Infotec) www.bsil.com

7 Aegis Global www.aegisglobal.com

8 Affine Analytics www.affineanalytics.com

9 Aithent www.aithent.com

10 Algorithmic Insight www.algorithmicinsight.com

11 Amazon www.amazon.com/Locations-Careers/b?ie=UTF8&node=239366011

12 Ameriprise www.ameriprise.com

13 American Express www.americanexpress.com/india

14 Analytics Quotient www.aqinsights.com

15 ANZ www.anz.com/india/en/about-us/our-company/anz-india

16 AOL www.corp.aol.com

17 Aptara Corp www.aptaracorp.com

18 Aureus Analytics www.aureusanalytics.com

19 Axtria www.axtria.com

20 Bank of America corp.bankofamerica.com/business/bi/india

21 Barclays Bank www.barclays.in

22 Bharatmatrimony.com www.bharatmatrimony.com/contact-us.php

23 Bharti Group www.bharti.com/home

24 Birlasoft www.birlasoft.com

25 Blackrock www.blackrock.com

26 Blueoceanmi www.blueoceanmi.com

27 Boston Analytics www.bostonanalytics.com

28 Bravo Lucy www.bravolucy.com

29 BRIDGEi2i Analytics Solutions www.bridgei2i.com

30 Buzzvalve www.buzzvalve.com

31 Capillary Technologies capillarytech.com

32 Capital One www.capitalone.com

11

33 Cartesian Consulting www.cartesianconsulting.com

34 Caterpillar www.caterpillar.com/en.html

35 Chain Analytics www.chainalytics.com

36 Cian Analytics www.ciansanalytics.com

37 Cisco www.cisco.com/web/IN/index.html

38 Citibank www.citigroup.com

39 Cognizant www.cognizant.com/india

40 Convergytics www.convergytics.net

41 CopalAmba (Previously Amba Research) www.copalamba.com

42 Crayon Data www.crayondata.com

43 Credit Sussie https://www.credit-suisse.com/in/en.html

44 Cricmetric www.cricmetric.com

45 Crisil GR&A ( Preveously Irevena) www.crisil.com/global-offshoring/global-offshoring.html

46 CrossTab www.cross-tab.com

47 Cytel Softwares www.cytel.co.in

48 Data Monitor(Informa company) www.datamonitor.com

49 DataMatics www.datamatics.com

50 Decidyn www.decidyn.com

51 Dell www.dell.com

52 Deloitte www.deloitte.com/view/en_IN/in/index.htm

53 Denuosource www.denuosource.com

54 Dexterity www.dexterity.in/

55 Dunnhumby www.dunnhumby.com/india

56 Ebay www.ebay.in

57 eClerx www.eclerx.com

58 Ekcelon www.ekcelon.com

59 Equifax www.equifax.co.in/home/en_in

60 Evalueserve www.evalueserve.com

61 Exl Service www.exlservice.com

62 Experian www.experian.in/corporate/experian-decision-analytics.html

63 Fair Isaac India www.fico.com/en/

64 Fidelity https://india.fidelity.com

65 FirstSource (perviously ICICI onesource) www.firstsource.com

66 Flutura www.flutura.com

67 Flytxt www.flytxt.com

68 Ford Business Service Center Pvt. Ltd. www.india.ford.com/about

69 Formcept www.formcept.com

70 Fractal Analytics www.fractalanalytics.com

71 Frrole www.frrole.com

72 GE Money www.gecapital.in

73 General Mills www.generalmills.co.in

12

74 genesis-analytics www.genesis-analytics.com

75 Genpact www.genpact.com

76 Germin8 www.germin8.com

77 Global Analytics www.global-analytics.com

78 Global Data www.globaldata.com

79 GMID Associates www.thegmid.com

80 Gramener www.gramener.com

81 Guavus www.guavus.com

82 HCL Technologies www.hcltech.com

83 HDFC Bank www.hdfcbank.com

84

Hewitt Associates(Now Aon-HR

analytics) www.aon.com/human-capital-consulting/default.jsp

85 HP www8.hp.com/in/en/software-solutions

86 HSBC www.hsbc.co.in

87 IBM https://www-935.ibm.com/services/in/en/it-services/flagged-map.html

88 ICICI Bank www.icicibank.com

89 ICRA Technology Services www.icteas.com/business_analytics.php

90 iCreate Software www.icreate.in

91 Ideal Analytics ideal-analytics.com

92 Indegene www.indegene.com

93 Infinite Analytics www.infiniteanalytics.com

94 Infosys www.infosys.com

95 Innovaccer www.innovaccer.com

96 Integeron www.integreon.com

97 Intouch Analytics www.be-in-touch.com

98 Ipsos www.ipsos.com

99 IQR Consulting www.iqrconsulting.com

100 Jigyasa Analytics www.jigyasaanalytics.com

101 John Deere (Inhouse Analytics) www.deere.co.in/en_IN

102 JPMorgan Chase www.jpmorgan.com

103 Kiesquare Analytics www.kiesquare.com

104 Knowledge Foundry www.knowledgefoundry.net

105 Koncept Analytics www.konceptanalytics.com

106 Konnect Social www.konnectsocial.com

107 L&T Infotech www.lntinfotech.com

108 Latentview Analytics www.latentview.com

109 Lehman Brothers (now Nomura) www.nomura.com

110 Macro Tech www.machrotech.com

111 Madison Business Analytics www.madisonbusinessanalytics.com

112 Manthan Analytics www.manthan.com

113 Market Equations www.marketequations.com

114 Market Quotient www.marketquotient.com

13

115 Marketelligent (now a part of Brillio) www.marketelligent.com

116 McKinsey & Company India http://mckc.mckinsey.com/our_work/analytics

117 Meritus Global www.meritusglobal.com

118 Microsoft www.microsoft.com/en-in

119 Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com/

120 Modelytics www.modelytics.com

121 Mu-Sigma www.mu-sigma.com

122 Nabler www.nabler.com

123 Netpositive www.nettpositive.com

124 Netscribes www.netscribes.com

125 NeuralTechSoft www.neuraltechsoft.com

126 Nielsen Company www.nielsen.com/in/en.html

127 Nokia Networks in.networks.nokia.com

128 Novartis inc www.novartis.in/#

129 Nuevora www.nuevora.com

130 Opera Solutions www.operasolutions.com

131 Pfizer www.pfizerindia.com

132

PharmARC Analytic Solution (Now IMS

Health) www.imshealth.com

133 Prudential www.prudential.com

134 PwC www.pwc.in

135 Quattro www.quatrro.com

136 Qubole www.qubole.com

137 Quintiles www.quintiles.com

138 RBS www.rbs.in

139 Redpill Solutions (IBM Daksh) https://www-935.ibm.com/services/in/en/it-services/flagged-map.html

140 Rina Analytics www.rinalytics.com

141 RMSI www.rmsi.com

142 RSG Media Systems www.rsgmedia.com

143 Saama Technologies www.saama.com

144 SapientNitro www.sapientnitro.com

145 SAS India www.sas.com

146 Scope international https://www.sc.com/scopeinternational/in/index.html

147 Sesame Technologies Pvt. Ltd www.sesametechnologies.net/?p=999

148 Sibia Analytics www.sibiaanalytics.com

149 Signal Hill www.signalhill.com/sectors/signal-hill-india

150 Simplify360 www.simplify360.com/

151 SkyBits Technologies www.sky-bits.com/wpsite/

152 SmartAnalyst www.smartanalyst.com

153 Spencer Analytics www.spencersretail.com

154 Standard Chartered Bank www.sc.com/scopeinternational/in/index.html

155 StatLabs www.statanalytics.com

14

156 Sutherland Global Services www.sutherlandglobal.com

157 Swiss Re www.swissre.com

158 Symphony Services www.symphonyteleca.com

159 Target Corp https://corporate.target.com/india

160 Tata Strategic Management www.tsmg.com

161 TCS www.tcs.com/Insights/Pages/TCS-Insights.aspx

162 Tech Mahindra www.techmahindra.com

163 Techaxes www.techaxes.com

164 TEG Analytics www.teganalytics.com

165 Tesco www.tescohsc.com

166 The Smart Cube www.thesmartcube.com

167 Thomson Reuters thomsonreuters.com/

168 Thoughtbuzz www.thoughtbuzz.net

169 Tiger Analytics www.tigeranalytics.com

170 TNS Global www.tnsglobal.com

171 Tower Watson www.towerswatson.com/en-IN

172 TransOrg transorganalytics.com

173 Transunion/CIBIL www.transunion.com

174 Trendwise Analytics www.trendwiseanalytics.com

175 Ugam Solutions www.ugamsolutions.com

176 Unilever www.hul.co.in

177 United Health Group www.uhgis.com

178 Unmetric www.unmetric.com

179 Valiance Solutions www.valiancesolutions.com

180 Vayamtech www.vayamtech.com

181 Vehere Interactive www.vehere.com

182 Vodafone Telecommunications enterprise.vodafone.com

183 Wipro www.wipro.com

184 WNS www.wns.com

185 Xebia www.xebia.in

186 Yes Bank www.yesbank.in

187 ZS Associates www.zsassociates.com