Raman Roy, president and CEO, Wipro Spectramind

l What is the path that states like West Bengal and Rajasthan, which have announced sops for the industry and rolled out big plans for ITeS but have yet to sell themselves on the infrastructure front, should follow to make it work?
When we went to Hyderabad, nothing worked there. When we went to Mumbai, while some others had been successful, we still had to be up and running in 59 days. Our only customer then came to us and said you just committed be running two months, and it looks tough… I remember telling him what I tell you—it is knowing what requires to be done and putting your head down to doing it that makes things work. We lobbied hard to change regulations. What these states need is to have people come in and do it. The laws have to support it. Earlier, it was impossible to have an IPLC terminate at a PSTN. I was a lone warrior, going around, believing that the one permission I needed would happen… but it just wouldn’t. Finally, some bureaucrat friends told me how to go about it. And it happened. The same thing will happen in West Bengal and Rajasthan, as well. Give it time…

Raman Roy, president and CEO, Wipro Spetramind

l Going forward, what is the outlook for the ITeS/BPO space?
I would like to begin the answer by dispelling a myth—even today, it is not voice that makes up the industry; that it does is just a creation of the media. If you analyze Nasscom numbers, most of the 200,000 people working in this space are non-voice. Voice is sexy, so people talk about it and think it’s all about call centers. As for the future, the possibilities are immense, and even the Nasscom estimates of $24 billion by 2008 are small—that’s just 4% of the global ITeS market.

On the other side, let’s dispel another myth—that we are an IT superpower. What superpower? We have low single-digit levels in terms of marketshare worldwide. That is not a superpower any which way you look at it—regardless of the growth numbers we enjoy. And be warned, those numbers could be in trouble—of the $24-billion that Nasscom is targeting, $3 billion is accounting. How? Not a single varsity teaches US GAAP. Where are we making fundamental changes in the supply? If there are going to be 1 million people by 2008, we are going to grow five-fold in the next five years. Where are those people going to come from? It is being left to the industry to do so, and we are doing it. We will take a great raw material and do it, but we are competing with the Philippines and China, where there are great people. We are all being disadvantaged.

l What makes a better fit—for IT companies to make the switch to ITeS by gathering domain expertise, or for domain specific companies to open up their own call centers? Pfizer, for instance, has entered the fray…
The jury’s still out on that. But take my word for it—IT companies setting up BPO operations is like IT companies making cars, bread, butter... They could then give Amul a challenge. That is what their opening BPO operations means. They want to run a restaurant without cooking themselves, and without hiring a cook.

As for BPO players, we are all out killing each other by swiping workforces, and not increasing the pool. At Wipro Spectramind, we have a policy where we do not "raid" the competition. Give it time—the boys will be separated from the men, and we hope to be among the men.

l GE Caps, American Express, Spectramind… a series of setting up from scratch and then moving on. What comes next for Raman Roy, especially as this venture has been sold off to Wipro?
To take Spectramind where it deserves to be—a global player in this space. India is a sleeping lion. I am proud to be an Indian and I am proud to operate in the country. Despite all of that, I will crib within the country, but outside, I will justify to the customers why all the paperwork etc need to be done. People ask me to describe success. It is my grandchild sitting on my knee and I tell him this giant industry that you see today, your grandfather helped create parts of it.

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