October 2014
1
Rural Ethos. Business Ethic.
B2R : Rural BPO in Uttarakhand, India
Building Uttarakhand : Linking Technology with hills for sustainable alternate rural livelihood with Rural BPO centers
B2R : RURAL BPO IN UTTARAKHAND, INDIA
BUSINESS PROBLEM: ATTRITION CHALLENGE IN URBAN BPO, RISING COSTS, MARGIN PRESSURE
SOCIAL ISSUE : LACK OF LOCAL EMPLOYMENT IN RURAL AREAS, FORCED MIGRATION, SOCIAL PRESSURE
BUSINESS 2 RURAL
o FOR-PROFIT SOCIAL ENTERPRISE, CREATES LIVELIHOOD
OPPORTUNITIES FOR RURAL YOUTH
o RURAL BPO CENTRES IN VILLAGES OF UTTARAKHAND
o DOMAIN FOCUS: PROVIDE BEST-IN-CLASS BUSINESS
SUPPORT SERVICES (DATA-FOCUS) IN NICHE AREAS:
PUBLISHING, LEGAL, F&A AT ATTRACTIVE PRICE POINT
o TECHNOLOGY IS KEY ENABLER, EMPHASIS ON LEARNING
& DEVELOPMENT
o INVEST IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
- Domain focus on identified industry segments - creating capabilities in focus verticals
- Emphasis on learning and development – rapid acceleration of learning curves
- Hub & Spoke: small delivery centers, geographically dispersed, individually managed
- Empowered, values-driven teams with high “connected-ness”
- Tech infra comparable to urban centers using ‘fit-for-purpose’ technology
The Model
- Collaborate with local NGOs/agencies for hiring, infra creation support
- Hard wiring into community - invest profits into rural development projects - resultant long term competitive advantage
3
Wireless Internet
connectivity by solar
powered relays
100% Power back - UPS
DG Set
4 MBPS Internet on optic
fiber Scalable Infra
4
Infrastructure & Technology
Key Challenges & Approach
Challenge Key Levers
1. Generating the right kind of demand
Need to break the stereotype of low-end data entry outsourcing to rural areas. True value add not just cost reduction.
• Go Global! Needs demand generation focus from Private Sector, Public Sector, and Government (eGov).
• “Verticalization” strategy to acquire annuity-based work: • Identifying niche service segments • Partnering with domain-specific “anchor” customers • Tie up with larger BPOs (sub-contracting) • Extending services to move up the value-chain
2. Building customer confidence for migrating work to rural centers
• Adopted a phased approach for organization learning: Proof-of-concept pilot -> “Patient” delivery-feedback cycles -> Large, steady revenue streams
3. Training rural youth in complex jobs in a cost-efficient manner
• Deskilled the work into smaller easy-to-learn tasks • Designed training to simulate the production environment • Created a strong training delivery team
4. Access to talent, size of pool • Partner with NGOs for access to talent pool • Generate strong word-of-mouth
5. Internet access in remote areas • Deployed a combination of optic fiber and last-mile wireless technology
6. Unavailability of business skills in local talent pool
• Hired a mix of local and urban managerial talent and subject matter experts
• Implemented a model of local leadership development
7. Building trust in a rural environment • Hard-wiring into community together with NGO partners 5
6
Nature of Services that can be provided
MU
TUA
L W
IN-W
IN W
ITH
OU
TCO
ME-
BA
SED
/TR
AN
SAC
TIO
N P
RIC
ING
PUBLISHING LEGAL FINANCIAL SERVICES & ACCOUNTS
Inte
rnat
iona
l
Pub
lishi
ng
com
pan
y
eBooks creation
Books
converted to
eBooks in
various formats:
Adobe, EPUB, &
proprietary
formats
Leading LPO in
India
(for US client)
Contract
Abstraction
Objective
coding of
legal
documents;
Review of
documents,
Extraction of
key fields;
summarizati
on of
information
India’s Leading KPO (for
US SME clients)
Sale
s,
Fina
ncia
l
dat
a
revi
ew
and
pro
cess
ing
Revi
ew
&
con
vers
ion
of
dail
y
stor
e
sale
s
dat
a &
ban
k
stat
em
ents
,
dat
a
scru
bbi
ng
&
rec
onci
liati
on.
Indi
a’s
lead
ing
law
pub
lish
er
Digitization and
Data conversion
: XML Tagging
Legal judgments
received in
scanned form,
data extracted
with OCR, XML
tagged as per
data structure,
output XML file
Large Indian Micro-
Finance orgn.
Ne
w
cust
om
er
acc
oun
t
setu
p
Cus
tom
er
appl
icati
on
for
m
veri
fica
tion
and
new
cust
om
er
acc
oun
t
setu
p
WEB RESEARCH, DATA MINING, DATA SCRUBBING, DATA MANAGEMENT
Large Indian B2B
portal
Product classification and mapping
Categorization & mapping of products and services on online
portal
International
advertising
company (for US
client)
Data Extraction for Retail
Extraction of information enabling analysis of purchase
trends across (grocery) stores in USA
Advertisement
analytics
company
Video review : pre-analytics for audit of outdoor media
Review of video content, data extraction, mapping of
information for analytics
Leading trade
marketing
organization
Backend support for MIS generation
Consolidate daily MIS reports from sales team in web-
application; educate team to send reports in correct & timely
manner
IT Product
company (SaaS
for SME clients)
Procurement back-office services
Data migration for new customers, ongoing procurement
data management (BPaaS)
MU
TUA
L W
IN-W
IN :
OU
TPU
T-B
ASE
D P
RIC
ING
PUBLISHING LEGAL FINANCIAL SERVICES
International
Publishing
company
eBooks creation Leading LPO
in India
(for US
client)
Contract
Abstraction
India’s Leading
KPO (for US SME
clients)
Financial data
review and
processing
India’s leading
law publisher
Digitization and
Data conversion :
XML Tagging
Large Indian
Micro-Finance
organization
New customer
account setup
WEB RESEARCH, DATA MINING, DATA SCRUBBING, DATA MANAGEMENT
Large Indian B2B portal Product classification and mapping
International advertising company (for US
client)
Data Extraction for Retail
Advertisement analytics company Video review : pre-analytics for audit of
outdoor media
Leading trade marketing organization Backend support for MIS generation
IT Product company (SaaS for SME clients) Procurement back-office services
The way forward ….
Who What they can do
Private sector Public Sector
• Focus on demand generation in the form of work to be done in rural BPO centers e.g. Digitization & Records archiving, Data entry and Information Processing, Accounting, Payroll, Customer Support (Sales, Service).
• Part-fund set up of rural BPO centers (as part of CSR). • Partner (as “anchor customers”) to impart job-specific skills • Create employee volunteering opportunities (to support initial and
ongoing activities in such centers)
Government • Focus on demand generation in the form of work to be done in rural BPO centers e.g. Digitization, Data entry and Information Processing, eGovernance initiatives, Citizen Support Services (related to different areas e.g. healthcare, education).
• Get better Internet bandwidth in rural areas : use combination of optic fiber and wireless last mile
• Create and implement a rural BPO policy across the country to incentivize setting up of such rural BPO units (learn from other countries: e.g. states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu in India) : fund part of initial cost, and part-ongoing cost for gestation period; set up monitoring mechanisms.
7
Key Takeaways …
8
• Do not forget the big picture – Nation building through inclusive Economic growth
• Focus on Demand generation – For a customer it is Business first
• Focus on tasks that can be componentized, distributed, managed, packaged and integrated
• Learning mechanisms need to be strong • Stay engaged with the community – it is a lifetime
commitment
Delivering Happiness
9
Delivering Happiness
10
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