When GE decided to move its back-office operations to India five years ago, no one imagined that it would go
on to create history. A success story that kickstarted a revolution in India’s IT-enabled services segment, the company has become a benchmark for others to emulate

The first thing that strikes you about GE India is its vast scale of operations and pace of growth. From an employee base of about 600 in 1998 to 12,000 in 2002, the company has expanded phenomenally, especially in the last 4-5 years. Spread across three huge buildings in Gurgaon, GE’s teeming population is part of India’s hottest industry segment—IT-enabled services (ITeS).

Being the first and the largest in the field, GE has not just contributed significantly in terms of experience and knowledge, but has also served as a breeding ground for several entrepreneurs and senior leaders in the industry. However, like any pioneering venture, GE had to face initial hiccups. Finding its way through India’s unfriendly bureaucracy and unstable political climate and dealing with all the procedural hurdles while establishing its businesses, GE managed to create a path of its own. "When we started, we had no set business models to follow, no prior experience. All we had was a vision and a huge amount of enthusiasm and energy to make it work," r ecalls GE President Pramod Bhasin.

	Fact File Number of employees 12,000 Annual turnover Rs 2,000 crore* Asset base Rs 7,220 crore Locations Gurgaon (3), Hyderabad (2), Bangalore (1), Jaipur (1, coming up) Scale of operations Delivers 450 processes across 30 different businesses Crisil and Fitch credit ratings AAA (highest safety) Employee facilities Vehicles 420 cabs, 30 buses and a few luxury vehicles Transport expenses Rs 75 lakh per month* Number of caterers 10 Training expenses (worldwide) $1 billion *Dataquest estimates

Getting started
When the Indian economy was opening up in the early nineties, GE started operations with its commercial and consumer finance services. The latter, which was a 50:50 joint venture with HDFC, was a dedicated auto finance company that provided the much-needed consumer reach. Both these businesses helped GE Capital establish its presence in the country. The next leap came when the company entered the credit cards market through a joint venture with State Bank of India (SBI) in 1998. The first ever tie-up between a multinational company and a nationalized bank, this boosted GE’s brand equity further.

Once it had established a firm footing with its commercial businesses, GE began exploring other potential areas for expansion. "India was seen as an emerging economy. Although we already had a presence in the country, we wanted to explore more business opportunities," says Bhasin. It was only in late 1996 that GE decided to launch remote processing services to carry out back office work for a number of GE businesses in the US. The idea, which germinated at an internal brain storming session, was driven by a simple rationale— The company wanted to leverage India’s high skilled English speaking, educated workforce to run a low-cost, back-office operation. The initial plan involved attacking non-core processes such as data entry and card collections.

	Pramod Bhasin, President He was one of the few senior GE managers from the US willing to relocate to India, when the company decided to set up shop. Chosen for his entrepreneurial instincts and financial acumen, Bhasin has proved himself as a true leader over the last decade. He is now leveraging his expertise in the BPO industry to set up similar operations in China, Taiwan and other Southeast Asian regions.

Building the team
The company had to build a team from scratch. Here it faced a peculiar problem. When it started hiring, it realized there weren’t many people with relevant experience. "There were some players like American Express and British Airways, but they were operating in limited areas. They never thought of running it as a business or doing it at a larger scale," recalls GE business leader Rakesh Chopra.

The company decided to look for people with at least some kind of back office experience, either in India or overseas. This could be in finance, insurance services or the distribution industry. In areas where it couldn’t find the right people, it looked for surrogates. For instance, if it couldn’t find people who had managed call centers, it took those who had experience in managing large teams. If it didn’t find people who knew about dialers or other relevant technologies, it found others who could read up and learn. Bhasin explains, "We went to the hotel industry, courier services and airlines to find out how they worked, how they managed their logistics and how that learning could be utilized to build our operations."

	VN Tyagarajan (Tiger), CEO, GE Capital International Services Popularly addressed as ‘tiger’ within the GE community, he is largely responsible for spearheading the growth and success that GECIS enjoys. He has also been personally responsible for developing many of GE Capital’s key leaders in India. In October 2002, Tiger accepted a global assignment for the position of senior vice president, Operations and Quality for Commercial Equipment Finance in Danbury, Connecticut, USA, and will move out of his current position shortly.

A massive effort went into building the team. Hiring over 50 managers and 500 associates per month was a mammoth task. The need for integration and training of the workforce added to the challenges. People had to be acclimatized with the global work culture. Allan H Kennel, senior VP-HR, says, "If you are operating in a global environment, it is important to have a global business perspective. You need to understand your customer well."

Training and development
For acquiring customers, a team of relationship managers was recruited to talk to GE businesses worldwide, encouraging leaders to visit India. The idea was to familiarize them with the quality of people and their capabilities in terms of handling business processes remotely. The senior managers were sent overseas and provided with rigorous orientation, etiquette, voice and skill training, contextual orientation, process, workflow and developmental coaching. Right from the beginning, GE’s focus on training has been a differentiator.

	Anju Talwar, CEO, GECIS Software Solutions Anju brings with her 13 years of experience in American Express Bank’s customer services. She joined GE in 1997 and helped establish GECIS as a backroom service provider, while managing recruitment and training of a large work team. She was responsible for growing the transaction processing business from 250 to over 900 employees, with 40-odd processes. She has also been involved in putting together the China project. Today she continues to lead as head of software solutions.

The company believes that if it can provide its employees with enough opportunities for training and career development, they would not need to look at frequent job changes for growth. "We employ every tactic possible for retaining our good people, especially at the senior level. These range from leadership programs and promotions to specific steps to address individual needs," says Bhasin. A huge amount of money is spent on training and every employee gets more than a month of training every year.

The company has also created systems and processes for guiding employees through their career path. This includes identification of high performers or potential leaders and assessment of the aptitude of every employee to provide him with the necessary training. Employees are allowed to move to different functional or operating roles, depending on their interests. "We encourage cross movement within GE businesses for career growth. Not many companies would offer you movement from medical systems to commercial to consumer businesses or anything else," points out Bhasin. For employees who wish to enhance their professional qualifications, the company has initiatives like the MBA program in association with IMT and CPA certification through the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

	Allan H Kennel, senior V-P (HR) Having spent over 34 long years with GE worldwide, Allan is a real GE veteran. His experience spans across varied businesses ranging from aerospace, nuclear energy and small appliances to capital. Before coming to GE India last year, Allan has worked in many other locations both in the US and Europe. In India, he is busy orienting the leaders in GE India with a global perspective, lending his familiarity with the company’s values and best practices.

Pressure to perform
From working in the middle of the night according to US work hours to dealing with customers from a completely different cultural background, there are a number of challenges. Chopra agrees, "You have to deal with varied cultures. But it also gives you so much international exposure."

If you are willing to put in that extra bit, this industry could offer you tremendous growth opportunities. Many of the GE leaders, who have grown with the company, are now enjoying the fruits of their work. "I feel I haven’t reached that point in life where I can call it quits. It is the pace with which you do things here and the growth, which keeps you on a high," says Anju Talwar, GE business leader. Balancing family and work, however, could be a bit tricky, especially for women. "If you don’t have a strong support back home, it can become very difficult," says Talwar.

GE, GE everywhere
Success has its own disadvantages. While GE has set an example for other ITeS players, it has also become a poaching ground for these companies. The company had faced a bit of setback when Raman Roy moved out with a team of handpicked GE managers to form his own company, Spectramind. But the company has to be prepared to deal with such setbacks. Bhasin affirms that besides this incident, there are very few senior managers who have left the company. Chopra adds, "Yes, Spectramind is a huge success story. But it is probably the only one to the best of my knowledge. Not many who moved out have been able to achieve that kind of success. In fact, some have come back. I am not sure whether any other company can offer the kind of growth that GE does."

	Rakesh Chopra, business leader (customer fulfillment, collections & insurance) A chartered accountant from UK, Chopra joined GE over a decade ago and has worked in various capacities in its commercial businesses. He successfully drove GE’s SBI credit card back office operations before he moved to GECIS (GE Capital International Services) last year. He is now heading GE’s centers of excellence in customer fulfillment, collections and insurance.

Whether it is the lure of more money, power or some more excitement, people will find numerous reasons to move out. Controlling attrition rates while operating in such a fast growing industry can be an arduous task. Even GE realizes this.

"Everyone gets the impression that you have GE people floating everywhere. Sure, this is bound to happen. You should also note that we have 12,000 people and if we assume an attrition rate of even 10 to 15%, you will see over 1200 GE people in the market," says Bhasin.

	Raman Roy, president & CEO, Spectramind  (former GECIS head) The man who kickstarted GE’s back office operations in India, Raman Roy is widely known as the pioneer of IT-enabled services in the country. At a time when there were hardly any other players in the market, he successfully steered GE India through all the initial bureaucratic hurdles, getting approvals, establishing satellite connectivity and tackling all other start-up hitches. In 2000, Roy moved on to create yet another success story in the ITES arena-Spectramind. But GE still remembers him as a ‘true champion.’

Five years ago, GE was the lone crusader of its cause, trying to prove its mettle as a back office service provider. Today there are over 100 other companies operating in this industry. GE has not only contributed in terms of building an entire industry in India, it has also created brand equity for the country. It has shown to the world that almost anything can be done in India. The company is now busy expanding its front-end operations. It wants to gradually move up the value chain, targeting higher-end processes, exploring more options in the services arena. The ITeS industry in India is ready to take off and GE wants to ensure it has a seat in the cockpit.

"We Had No Idea We Would Grow So Big" -- Pramod Bhasin, President, GE Capital (Asian operation)

SHWETA VERMA in New Delhi

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