What's This India Business?: Offshoring, Outsourcing, and the Global Services Revolution (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The Indian government says in its official plan for 2020: "Our vision of India in 2020 is of a nation bustling with energy, entrepreneur-ship and..." (more)
Key Phrases: global services revolution, large western company, offshore project, Six Sigma, World Bank, British Empire (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A must read for anyone trying to understand the Indian BPO industry...a fresh perspective." -- The Economic Times

"A practical handbook for companies considering whether and how to outsource." -- The Director

"Very well timed..and well placed to advise any company thinking of taking the plunge. Such advice is invaluable." -- Financial Times

....A valuable guide to the benefits and pitfalls of outsourcing. ...Davies provides many valuable lessons in international business. -- Soundview Executive Book Summary, October 2004

Both practical and extremely entertaining, with invaluable information for anyone thinking about offshoring. -- Executive Diversity Services, Inc., February 1, 2005

Offers explanation and insight on the nuances of Indian culture and customs and outlines the intricacies of the Indian market. -- IndUS Business Journal, November 15, 2004

Product Description

A global services revolution is taking the business world by storm, as India becomes the world’s back office provider. From call centers and claims processing to human resources, accounting and even legal operations, service jobs are migrating from the West to India by the thousand each year. While cost reduction is often the initial goal of "offshoring," What’s This India Business? clearly demonstrates its real value: increased quality and greater effectiveness. Rich in examples and expert advice, this nuts-and-bolts guide shows what it takes to surge ahead of market trends, build a sustainable new business model, and unleash the power of Indian businesspeople to gain an advantage. This is a practical guide to a dynamic country of a billion people with a complex culture and vibrant business environment, offering proven strategies for working positively with Indian businesses. Paul Davies takes you behind the scenes to show you how to select the right business partner from the myriad of Indian companies that all seem to present a similar face to the West. He takes you step-by-step through the planning and implementation stages, exposing the hidden costs and benefits, and carefully steering you away from the inherent dangers in offshoring. This straightforward insider’s guide is an entertaining introduction to the dynamic cultures of India as well as a challenging book for the new century.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 238 pages
• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing (March 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904838006
• ISBN-13: 978-1904838005
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #858,670 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #20 in

  Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Outsourcing

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read your reviews carefully, May 11, 2005

By	lingvistika (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews

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.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Inevitable Generates Passion, September 24, 2004

By	Craig L. Howe "The Pointed Pundit" (Darien, CT United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complete with pungent anecdotes, January 17, 2005

By	George F. Simons "at diversophy.com" (Mandelieu Napoule, Cote d'Azur, France) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.