Customer Reviews

What's This India Business?: Offshoring, Outsourcing and The Global Services Revolution

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Notice that almost all the negative reviews of this book do not actually review the book, but go off on a personal rant about something else. Davies' book is terrifically well-written and clear. The first section deals with the hard business aspects of outsourcing to India. The middle is an informative and very amusingly candid explanation of Indian culture and business manners that I would recommend to cultural trainers as well as to business people. The third portion of the book explains more business considerations. Contrary to what you might think from some of the non-review reviews, Davies does do a good job explaining what can go wrong when outsourcing corporate functions to India, and he encourages scepticism and close monitoring throughout the process. While he tells a lot of success stories, any alert person reading the book will also come away knowing that failure is possible and how it may be prevented. He does deal to some degree with the ethics of the whole issue, but from the point of view of someone who considers the whole outsourcing trend to be inevitable. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the issue of Indian outsourcing, even if, like me, you have no part in it.

While I understand and am sympathetic to the passion the topic of outsourcing generates, there is no doubt in my mind it is here to stay.

I know from my personal experience, the cost savings are enormous. I also know from my personal experience, outsourcing adds complexity to a project. Paul Davies, an international businessman and consultant, has written a timely book addressing these issues. He offers valuable insight into the advantages and benefits of outsourcing and off-shoring projects to India. While acknowledging the substantial cost savings, he is not blind to the other side of the equation. Citing Gartner Group analysts, he acknowledges about half of all outsourcing projects fail.

Davies devotes the first part of his book to background on India as a country and as a worldwide services provider. He offers insight into the types of services U. S. and European businesses can take offshore and how to select the right business partner or supplier.

Next, he offers valuable insights into the Indian culture. These lessons will help the newcomer avoid many of the problems newcomers to Indian out-sourcing experience. Davies explores the mind and culture of the Indian people. He offers valuable insights into local concepts of time and working, dressing, eating, traveling and tipping.

Finally, he offers suggestions for successfully doing business in India. Davies offers suggestions on how to write a business plan, due diligence, navigating risks and negotiating and haggling. The early savings, he notes, are pale compared to the long-term benefits that will come from a long-term relationship.

This is a timely book on a controversial subject. I have personally lost work to out-sourcing; I have also out-sourced projects. While I prefer the old days, I am convinced they are done. The cost savings generated will not be ignored. They represent a major competitive advantage for business opting to take advantage of them. I agree with Davies that ultimately they will trigger new investment and more prosperity here at home.

This next decade will certainly see an extraordinary and painful reorganization of the social, cultural and economic orders, first because of the increasing free movement of labor across borders, and secondly, and much harder to manage, the free movement of work via telecommunications and information technology. Both create both new hopes and significant disruptions in the populations affected and the organizations that conduct them. Paul Davies, now MD of a consultancy for Onshore-Offshore, previously was responsible for transferring business processes to Unisys India. The fact that working for the Indian part of the organization is currently spoken of in Unisys in the USA as "joining the dark side" is a good indicator of the pain in this process.

What's This India Business? is about two things. Firstly, it unabashedly advocates offshoring as not only a given, but as a evolutionary inevitability for successful enterprises in the now and future global economy. Secondly, it is about India and its business culture, currently the outstanding example of the global trend to offshoring work in the service sector. As Davies puts it in his introduction, his book aims to help the reader "comprehend the scale of the change and what India can do for your business" and to help the reader be more on a par with the more extensive knowledge that his or her Indian counterpart is likely to have of Western business people and practices.

Davies starts with the basics of Indian economy, history and geography, what the business traveler can expect to find there. He follows this with a picture of the educational level of the people he or she will deal with. This is followed by a "primer of offshoring," spelling out which business functions are suitable for offshoring and how one can to do this as safely as possible. Given the high failure rate of outsourcing projects, this is much needed advice.

The focus then turns to India's role in the services revolution and the advantages which widespread English language competence and engineering education have given it in the IT marketplace. He answers questions about how one should approach this resource, align objectives, and structure relationships to do business together.

The second part of the book is a well-focused cultural briefing that concerns itself with what the eager entrepreneur is faced with having set foot in India. Like one who learns a foreign language to the point of being able to share humor and take pleasure in foreign company, Davies has learned to enjoy the differences and convert irritation into delight. Insights are shored by pungent anecdotes largely from the author's first-hand experiences.

That being said, whatever the author's personal successes in navigating the Indian business environment-and they appear considerable-this section tends to drift into imperially British wit, full of off-the-cuff judgments at the expense of Indian culture. While Brits may snigger at and lampoon the things that don't work or work for them in Indian culture, this is at the expense of the host culture, and appears arrogant and somewhat off-putting to this reader. One only has to think of Peter Mayle whose Year In Provence and subsequent books regale British tourists and attract settlers with while leaving a trail of resentiment locally.

Once surviving on the ground in India, it is decision time. A solid cost-benefit analysis is needed and Davies stimulates the process of preparing a business plan that fits this new environment and the particular risks it brings to the business arrangement.

Chapter 12 carefully explores the rhythm of Indian style negotiation and provides valuable insights both into the processes one may encounter and into the need to control ones impulses when entering into the local rhythm of give and take. This negotiation does not end with the decision to hire or partner with an Indian firm. The following chapters are about how to manage in order to get the results you need from the arrangement, and how to leverage the advantages your Indian collaborators can bring to you, even opening doors in the Indian market itself.

Most of us have already been consciously or unconsciously impacted by the services we receive from offshore agents of the many companies we deal with. Recently I had the occasion to ask for customer service for a crisis with my laptop software while I was working in Europe. Idled by the situation, I waited for the better part of the business day be able to connect the supplier during their posted Silicon Valley office hours-8:00AM to 6:00PM PST, only to speak to a Mumbai technical support professional on night shift. Not only did the US company try to dissimulate its offshoring activity, but it could have easily have offered better service hours to their customers given their multiple service locations.

In a final chapter on "Corporate Social Responsibility" Davies identifies some of the public relations risks and a few of ethical dimensions that offshoring is bringing about both in the home workforce as well as in the society of the offshore workforce. There are some suggestions but few solutions to the disturbing social disruptions that are now beginning to surface.

Perhaps the directness of What's This India Business? will serve not only as a handbook to offshoring to India, but as a wake-up call to reflective readers to the fact that few practical suggestions are being offered to help us cope with the social impact of what seems to the new economic offshoring imperative for Western enterprises. The energy of the new economic giants, India and China, will not be repressed. We all need better theories for managing our human planet than the worn version of Darwinian selection that seems to be capital's anachronistic mode of thinking.

Paul Davies offers a very thoughtful, useful and interesting look at how to outsource overseas. Davies taught for nine years and has a Ph.D. in English focused on the novels of George Eliot. He also served as Managing Director of Unisys in India. The book reflects his varied expertise and idiosyncrasies. Both his left and right brains are well developed, and the competition between the two plays out in the pages of his book. At times it reads like a management consultant's manual on the growing practice of "offshoring." At other times, it reads like a very perceptive travel book that guides executives on what to expect when they encounter the culture shock of India. The effect is not disjointed, however, and this volume would be valuable for any firm considering an offshore effort in India and, probably, in other countries as well. Because Davies gives you a good overview of what you will encounter when you outsource, as well as practical business advice. We highly recommend his book for those who are considering moving aspects of their businesses overseas, especially to India.

This is a great reference on the world we live in today regarding the global economy and the wonderful world of outsourcing. I especially liked the section on what to expect during your time travels to India. A lot fo great information that I otherwise would not have been the wiser.

Mr Paul Davies gives a good assessment of my country. His guide to cultural do's and dont's is spot on. No Indian should quarrel with those. He also does not hide the many problems in Indian society, as he talks about the benefits of offshoring to Westerners.

On offshoring, I hope you will seriously consider his assessment that this trend will continue and grow. Americans might be undrstandably uneasy about their jobs. But they never seem to question how natural it is that Hollywood should dominate the world film industry, and that their chipmakers and software firms do also in those industries. To Indians, the U.S. still has immense strengths in technology.

English is not my first language (even though I scored 720 in my SAT verbal), but I still must say I feel there is an undertone in this book of how on earth did we lose the Raj. There is a grudging acknowledgment of India's excellence but as a fait accompli rather than to understand the organic strengths of India, interrupted for what in its long history, was a short 150-year spell of playing host to the Burra Sahib.
An interesting work as a handbook of the hows and whats of this undeniably violent element of globalization. Like a Lonely Planet for CIOs.
In other words, interesting, but not good for those seeking the whys - in India and abroad.
By far, I prefer Rising Elephant, by Ashutosh Sheshabalaya. This goes to the core of what India was, could have been, and in case we forget, is becoming. And what this means (and could mean) for the West.
Do not forget to note his dedication note. Grandparents Rai Bahadur and a university professor. Parents educated in Oxford, Harvard, Columbia. A different perspective from an Indian aristocrat, but married I believe from the name, to a European or American (and also part of a local motorcycling band in Europe).
In other words, hard to place. Maybe the Burra Sahibs should speak with him. But my feeling is this is a good book for Western CEOs, but all Indians (and Western IT workers) would understand more if they read Rising Elephant.

It is kind of ironic that Amazon lists this book. Obviously they have not read it. Since 2000 they have outsourced almost all of their customer service. And not exactly done a bang up job of it.

Notice that there are no contact phone numbers even listed on the site anymore? You have to have them call you. I had a problem with my last order (and I do mean my last order ever with Amazon) today. While unfailingly polite, the customer service rep took 5 minutes to locate my order ( the computer kept giving him the wrong one) and could not resolve my problem. At least I think that's what happened. I could hardly understand a word he said.

What has happened to this one proud company? What has happened to this one proud nation?

I read this book with interest wondering how this writer would justify the obvious lack of ethics inherent in taking work away from his fellow citizens and placing work in a third world country.

The answer is that he didn't. He didn't convince me that outsourcing is either good or inevitable either.

But I am sure he doesn't lose one minute of sleep about the people he's put out of work or the fees he earns doing it. He'll only start to worry when he is denied fees because Indian nationals take over his activities.

I'm just sorry I contributed to his shameful earnings by buying the book.

I read this book as my intro. to out sourcing. Davies is a good salesman. After further research we hired an Indian firm to do our accounting (including payroll), our customer service and some programming functions.

Things went bad from the start. The call center people were incompetent, our payroll was wrong five months out of six, and the programming was full of errors. Than there were the anti-offshoring nuts who kept calling in bomb threats and sent me emails loaded with viruses. We finally gave up and brought everything back home. Too bad we had to lose half our customers to learn our lesson. You get what you pay for after all.