Lehman and after…

T he news about Lehman Brothers moving some work back and the subsequent

media coverage on it, with quotes from everyone except the company concerned,

proves that it has been taken very seriously by the media and the industry. It

has once again brought into focus, two questions–often raised intermittently,

but never answered well. One, how should the now fairly established Indian BPO

industry handle success and the difficulties that come along with it and two,

how should it work with the media. Both the challenges are not exactly mutually

exclusive.

The knee-jerk reaction of the industry is somewhat defensive. "Those are

very small numbers", "Not many in the US know about it",

"See, Wipro still continues to handle a lot of work for them in India"

are some common reactions. The good part is that none of its competitors are

trying to show one-upmanship over Wipro on this issue. However, it also raises a

question–why is the reaction so defensive?

Are they admitting that quality could sometimes be below the level of

expectation? If yes, then isn’t it time to do something about it? And if they

think that no matter what you do, you cannot satisfy all the people all the

time, and it is one of those rare cases, then let them come forward and say so

in black and white. Otherwise, it will continue to be portrayed as "a

question-mark on India’s capability". The case of Wipro, which has not

reacted to it, is understandable. Lehman is still a big client. But why are the

others silent?

The media has also accepted the whole thing at its face value, forgetting the

basic dictum of journalism: skepticism is the first step toward truth. Something

is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it!

However, the broader responsibility of making the media work in that

direction lies with the people involved. Remember the Abhijit Kale case. The

first day, headlines of most TV channels were about the news of selectors Kiran

More and Pranab Roy accusing Kale of trying to bribe them. It was only when the

public in general questioned it that the media tried to probe the whole thing.

Not to say that Lehman is wrong, or even for that matter, More and Roy are

wrong, but it does not mean that it should not be questioned. Especially in this

case, where it is giving the whole Indian industry a bad name.

Now, there are three possibilities. One, Lehman is absolutely right. Wipro

clearly faulted. So, it withdrew some work. In that case, it is an issue between

the two companies. One should not conclude too much from it. However, if the

industry gets defensive, it will give a feeling that it sometimes happens with

all of them. That is a big and important issue then. It has to be tackled head

on.

The second possibility is that Lehman is relatively right. As a client, it

has every right to withdraw. However, Wipro cannot be faulted, as it may have

been different interpretation of the clause. In any case, again, that is between

the two companies. But then, the rest of the industry should ignore it.

And finally, there is the possibility that Lehman was expecting much more

than what it was paying for. Or to put it the other way around, Wipro was hoping

to provide much more than what it was charging for. There had been reports at

the time of signing up of this deal that Wipro got it for a very low price. In

fact, one media report quoted Lehman spokesperson as saying that though Wipro,

TCS, and Infosys, were shortlisted, Infosys could not match the other two on the

‘sales’ front. Some reports had mentioned Wipro getting it (it is an IT

deal, not a call center deal) at as low as $16 per hour. And if this is close to

the truth, it then raises far bigger questions–on bundling of IT and BPO

services. Even if there is some overlap, it should be clear as to which division

(IT/BPO) should handle what kind of work in what deal and at what cost, and

correspondingly at what price.

Whatever the issue may be, irrespective of whether it is significant or not,

the fact still remains that the kind of media coverage that we have seen does

not help anyone. So, what can the industry do? One is to totally shun media.

That does not help, as many of you have experienced first hand. A better way is

to work with the media and educate it and steadily build trust. In fact, almost

all the speakers in the keynote session in Nasscom 2003 raised this issue, but

no action has been taken so far by anyone.

Effective media management becomes extremely important if you are a global

company, and a successful one at that. Success has to be handled with

responsibility. Only Vikram Talwar of EXL has raised this issue a few times, but

no one has done any thing about it. It is high time they did! 

Shamanuja Das