2. Background
• Started in 2005 by Saloni Malhotra as a test project sponsored by
Ashok Jhunjhunwala's TeNet group from Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras.
• Connected the three dots in her head, ‘rural’, ‘business’, and
‘technology’ to give rise to The DesiCrew Solutions Pvt Ltd.
• Incubated by RTBI* of IIT Madras.
• Tried different models on a basis of trail and error
• The ‘kiosk’ based model
• The franchise model
• The final model
• Registered as a Limited Company in 2007.
*IIT Madras did not have a formal incubator at that time. It is now called RTBI
3. The Need for a “Rural BPO”
Market Need:
• Alarming industry statistics of almost 100% attrition levels.
• An outcome of cost cutting exercises.
• Social pressures (especially in case of women).
• Insufficient marginal salaries to sustain themselves in cities.
• The decentralized DesiCrew model seeks to fill this workforce gap.
Social Need:
• OECD estimates indicate 130 million educated workers in rural India
with little or no access to meaningful employment.
• Migrating to cities is their only option.
• DesiCrew aims to leverage this potential of rural India.
4. A Rural BPO?!
PERCEPTIONS FACTS
Availability of talent in rural areas. The industry is already employing 60% of
• Production staff, middle the staff from rural areas.
management and support
staff.
Infrastructure For the first time rural India has over
taken cities in internet usage
Lack of Workable models Outsourcing is a very well established and
a very commercial one at that : It’s easy
to pick the model and replicate in a
smaller area.
Rural BPO can’t do high end data entry From multimedia to plotting maps,
and time sensitive work It’s all possible with adequate training.
5. Statistics
• 8.5 lakh jobs created by IT/BPO sector in Q1 of FY 2010-11.
(source: NASSCOM)
• 60% of employees come from tier 2 and tier 3 towns.
• 60% employees are women.
• Almost 60% attrition on an average in the industry!
BPO related skills study
Literacy Rate % Area Rural Avg.(%) Urban Avg.(%)
Urban Rural Logical Reasoning 70.5 73
80.3 86.62 Analytical Ability 68 70
73.1 75.02
59.4 Language and 65 80
44.7
communication
English 59.8 70.1
Maths & Science 53.5 55.2
1991 2001 2011
Source: NASSCOM
Source: India.gov.in
6. PHILOSOPHY
Vision:
• To expand economic geographic boundaries by leveraging local
talent pools to provide a competitive advantage to customers.
• A double bottom line (financial and social development), connects
global clients with low cost back office centres in rural India.
7. The DesiCrew Model
Rural, Educat
Value, Competence, Skills
ed
Services as an employee Unemployed
Crewmate
in Desicrew
D
Touch
• a minimum of 12th pass and basic D Touch – Training Program
knowledge on computers to be considered District Level Training Centre:
for employment • 25-seater Training Center
• The candidates are selected based on a • Batches of 3 months
screening test. • 50 people/ batch
9. • A distributed operations model, whereby the Chennai office acts as
the interface between the client and the rural centers.
• Rural delivery model is a network of micro-centres strategically
selected across rural and semi-urban locations.
• Each centre is professionally run with a 25 seat facility working in 2
shifts to provide back-end services to global clients.
• Locations of the micro-centres are identified in those territories
with a population in the range of 10 to 100 thousand.
• The workforce manning these centres is built up by training the
educated but under employed.
10. Advantages
• Lower costs for clients as overheads (operating expenses) at these
centers are far cheaper as compared to the urban counterparts.
• the client gets a cost advantage of up to 40% of their current costs.
• Creation of computer based/ knowledge related jobs in
communities where there are no similar jobs.
• Lower attrition rates for the industry
• The employees are far more rooted, in fact 70% are women.
• Thus more loyal and happy workforce and better quality work
11. Scalability
• Yes the model is scalable.
• Secondly, there is competition now.
• A lot of others started similar distributed models– Which validates the model in a
sense.
• More and More BPOs are looking at Indian customers.
• ‘The Global Delivery Model’ doesn’t always work.
• Indian companies offer 1/3rd of what foreign companies are willing to pay.
• So many are experimenting with the model – the Tatas, Wipro, Aditya Birla Group
etc.
13. SERVICES
•They handle clients from Insurance, Market
Research, Internet, Mobile, E-Governance and Social
sectors
• The services offered: Generating, Populating and
Moderating content, Digitization, Data Entry, Mailroom
activities, Secondary Research, Translation, Beta testing
of web products Website monitoring, et cetra.
14. REACH
• 5 centres and a new center recently established in Kaup, Karnataka.
• 250 strong workforce
• Across 2 states- Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; signed MOUs for
setting up new centers in 22 districts of Andhra Pradesh
• 21 clients in all, and 40 plus completed projects
15. Challenges
• Perception about Rural areas
• Infrastructure bottlenecks in Rural
areas
• Competition in the BPO market
17. IMPACT
50 seats
100
people
RS 6000/- 72 lakh
per month
per PA per
person village
1000 720 Cr per
companies annum
=
This infusion of money into the rural areas, is what
we call
‘creating wealth at the bottom of the pyramid Source: Talk by Snali Malhotra at
TEDx 2011
18. AWARDS
• BID Challenge India
• Sankalp (Highly Scalable Social Model)
• FICCI FLO (Best Woman Social Entrepreneur)
• CII Seal of Appreciation
• The Mantham Award
Editor's Notes
Shetried different models before landing into the present day’sThe ‘kiosk’ model:Many organisations in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka started internet kiosks in many villages in order to provide knowledge, agriculture and health services to people. But these kiosks used to be idle for 10hr a day. So she tried to gather people (employees) over to kiosks and work there. This model obviously didn’t work but it did prove that there are significant untapped potential in these areas.The franchise model:Here the delivery units were owned by franchisee and the franchisee is responsible of paying the employees under him/her. The problem they faced with this model is that the franchise is not ready to invest unless there is a project and the client is not ready to give a project unless there is a strong work force. This landed up in a hen and egg story. Both the models also failed in an aspect to establish a culture and a discipline which is very important for a company in this sector.So she decided to own the village delivery centres and designate all others as employees of DesiCrew.Thus DesiCrew was born as a private limited company in 2007.
OECD: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Its not fair to say that there is talent available in the rural areas since 60% of the people working in this sector in India are from tier2 and tier3 towns.The Internet usage has improved due to higher literacy levels, easy availability and affordability.Establishing a rural BPO doesn’t mean that the big building in the city shifted to a village. The model that works is a distributed operations model which establishes a 25 seat facility office for a group of 10 villages.With proper training any educated individual can be made to deliver high end stuff that all BPOs in cities deliver.
Rural India showed a rise in literacy levels and is on par with urban counterparts todayThe BPO skill study revealed that there is no much difference in rural and urban educated people in their level of competence except in ‘English and communication’ .Statistics show that due to a lot of attrition rates there is lot of untapped potential in rural areas
DesiCrew is a private limited company, but with mission of developing rural areas with influx of money into them.
Two sets of people constitute the IB of DesiCrew. 1)Educated, unemployed rural people 2)People who chose to or forced to leave their jobs in cities and stay back at their hometowns.In the six S framework its supporting them in the sustainable stability in short term and sustainable strength in the long term.The DesiCrew’s belief is that any capable educated individual can be made to deliver high end services if provided with proper training.They set a minimum qualification of 12th pass and a basic knowledge of computers and they select people through a screening and train them through their program ‘D Touch’This Value addition process generates ‘The Crewmate’, an employee in DesiCrew.
This is a disrtibuted operations model. The city office will be interacting with clients and managing transactions with them. Every transaction in this model is a Quid Pro Quo transaction.Every delivery centre is owned by DesiCrew itself and the Crewmates are employees.DC2 s will be interacting with the city office for work modules and accountable to the city office only.The model is decentralized in the sense physically i.e., delivery centers but the decision making is left to city office.
As people are less inclined to leave their jobs given the improved quality of life and option of staying with their families.
As this is decentralized model scaling is just starting another delivery center with a 25 seat capacity.
For ClientsRelatively lower costs as overheads are far lowerFlexible workforce requirements to match industry fluctuationsUnique recruitment, training, and certification programs that ensure employees’ abilities to work on complex projectsCreative and effective software that enables employees to transcribe documents with ease and accuracyAbility to provide services in multiple Indian languagesGain convenient and comprehensive access to rural marketsInfrastructure to ensure almost 100% uptime for timely delivery of projects For PeopleCreation of computer based and knowledge related jobsIncreased and secured income in predominantly agricultural areasHigher savings rate as workers are not displaced from their homesIncreased income and savings rate that bring about investments in homes, social functions and higher educationImproved social standing that in turn contributes to greater participation in community matters and young girls funding their own education/weddingGreater confidence means higher aspirations for the futureReduction of the brain-drain effect while stimulating development of rural India For CommunityPhenomenon of ‘Reverse Migration’ where talented, educated rural youth return and stay in their communities because of availability of white collar jobs Wealth infusion into local communities through local residentsSocial perception where the community sees a new, realistic path towards prosperityFor BusinessLower attrition rates for the industry by leveraging local talent from rural and semi-urban areasCheaper overheads means lower cost and increased industry competitivenessFuel new entrants by marketing the rural BPO model and creating a new mode of businessCreation of new markets and expansion of urban markets to rural and semi-urban areas as a result of increase in rural-consumer’s buying capacity
Started off with the following:Digitization-data entry, data conversion, proof reading and converting to Tamil/regional languages, translation between English and regional language, formatting and page settingData entry/translation of survey forms for research institutionsManaging sales data, secondary researchNow offer whole list of other services across 5 different sectors as shown in slide.Success stories:Industry : InsuranceHighlighted Service: New Business Set-upAfter expanding their market, one of the top 5 insurance companies in India needed to digitize scores of new insurance proposals. Our team processed on average 2200 forms per days, with peak volumes of up to 3500 forms per day. Our services allowed this particular client to scale, lower the bench cost for fluctuating demand, as well as reduce their overall costs in new business acquisition.Industry: Internet & Mobile Highlighted Service: Live Chat ResponsesAn exciting new award winning start-up in the mobile VAS (Value Added Services) space has developed a mobile answer engine that delivers precise answer to questions posted by mobile phone users.As not all answers were in their databases, this client contracted DesiCrew to be their human assisted fallback by answering within 5 minutes questions posed by users through online researchThis task requires DesiCrew associates to decode the SMS language to clearly understand the question, run a search through databases on the internet to find an appropriate answer, respond to the query, run basic analytics to build further automated databases, arrange FAQs in standard databases, and prepare template messages for FAQs. This process has allowed the client to differentiate itself from the competition when question could not be answered automatically by the engine. Furthermore, the analytics from the process and regular recommendations from the DesiCrew team to the client has helped optimize their search algorithm. Industry: Market ResearchHighlighted Service: TranscriptionFor this international market research organization, our team has done audio format conversion, transcription and translation in order for the client to optimize the use of its industry and consumer feedback surveys.Our team first converts audio tapes of recorded surveys to digital mp3 or wav files, then transcribes and translates the surveys from spoken regional Indian languages into written English. Our team started doing 20-30 hours per month, is currently (in August 2009) doing 120 per month, and is continually increasing its capacity and productivity. After the first two months of learning, there are currently no re-works on any output given to the client. Digitizing the audio tapes leaves the client with a more modern and manageable resource, and the transcription/translation work provides this research organization the capacity and cost advantage that would be unavailable with its current internal resources. All materials are returned to the client.Industry: Internet & MobileHighlighted Service: Web MonitoringIn order to ensure a quality user experience, our team has provided web monitoring support for this global internet portal.Our team checks 10 different country sites across 4 continents, with specific attention to link functionality. Every time it appears a specific link does not work as designed, our team checks and double checks the problem and then reverts back to the client with feedback to correct all errors. This quality assistance support is integral to the client as it's site functionality is a core operation. The DesiCrew team averages 1000 link clicks per day, which is in line with the client's request, with scope for scale.Industry: Social SectorHighlighted Service: Data Entry (Digitization)For this pan-Indian NGO focused on child education, we have completed various data entry projects (and now translation projects) of their large quantity of surveys and annual student evaluations.The high volume of surveys needed to be processed is unmanageable for the client, and like many social sector organizations, new projects of many sizes, formats, and budgets come and go on a consistent basis. We have solved both of these issues through our clever project management tools to allow for flexible intake of new tasks on an as needed basis, and our expertise and capacity in data entry and management to achieve consistent high quality and low Turn-around-time (TAT) at a practical cost to an Indian NGO.Industry: E-GovernanceHighlighted Service: Project ManagementIn a Government of Rajastan initiative to provide smart cards to all women statewide called "Bhamashah",DesiCrew was contracted to digitize and ensure quality compliance for over 4 million forms in just a two months span.In that time, our team transitioned and trained over 1000 professionals, processed 4.1 million forms in various languages like English and Hindi, coordinating 40 data entry centers and scanning centers with the client and overcoming operational challenges like scaling from the original 12 field requirement to 60 fields under severe time constraints. The project was an immense project management undertaking, and was completed successfully within the client's expectations.Industry: Internet & MobileHighlighted Service: Content GenerationIn an ongoing process, one of the most admired internet companies in the world has contracted DesiCrew to populate data on a geographic information tool, whereby data points such as roads, points of interest, etc. are plotted across various countries which do not already have adequate map data.The DesiCrew team conducts secondary research on the web to build databases of required information, using a web-based tool to draw roads, railway lines, points of interest, etc. The team built its knowledge capacity in topography, and has plotted points of inters of over 55 countries around the globe. The activity proved that DesiCrew teams can quickly create capacity in areas where it has no prior expertise. This led this particular client to explore further opportunities with DesiCrew which were knowledge-based labour intensive activities. The client could thus move its in-house resources to other high value activities, while at the same time saving as much as 50% on existing costs.
They inaugurated the Kaup center very recently that makes it totally 6 delivery centers for DesiCrew.She says even if some one offers a big project and asks her it get it done in the city itself she would say no. Because it spoils the very purpose of the existence of the company. Profits are important but in our case the beneficiary too. We are accountable to both of them.She also said that they recently turned down a very big project by an internet company because she don’t know how much porn the employees may be exposed to while doing the work. She says think before you leap.In 2008 DesiCrew did a project with Govt. of Rajasthan in which they digitized the data of all female households in the state. They completed the project in two months and they employed 1500 people for this project.She hopes by 2015 she would permanently hire 1000 peope.
Apart fromDesiCrew’s beliefs there are lot of perceptions and myths about rural areas.Infrastructure bottlenecks like regular power cutsAs more Indian companies need outsourcing now, but they provide muss less so all companies in this sector of thinking of establishing their rural delivery centres to cut down overheads. So a competition exists.
Creation of computer based/ knowledge related jobs in communities where there are no similar jobs.Influx of money and skills to rural areasIncreased savings ( The employees can save 90% of their salaries compared to 10% savings in cities)Stable workforce due to better social standingSo better motivation to work All these result in reverse migration of people who went to cities in search of jobs.
IT is a 180 bn $ industry in India today which is poised to reach 260 bn $ by 2015. So evenif 1% of that money is influxed into rural areas, the impact will be very large.More money means better facilities and better infrastructure in rural areas.A bottom top approach to development
The Business in Development (BiD) The Sankalp Forum is holistic ecosystem designed to catalyze impact investments into sustainable and scalable social enterprises globally. Our mission is to create an enabling platform that supports socially relevant small and medium enterprises. We provide year-round access to investment opportunities, capacity building, knowledge and crucial networks.FLO was established in 1983, as a division of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and industry (FICCI), with primary objective of FLO is to promote entrepreneurship and professional excellence in womenCii: confideration of indian industriesManthan Award is a first of its kind initiative in India to recognize the best practices in e-Content and Creativity
