Young and Restless India » Entrepreneurship

Rural BPO

Raj — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:41:47 +0000

India’s BPO industry is already worth $12bn but rural BPOs are part of a fresh push by Indian entrepreneurs to keep the industry competitive according to BBC article titled “Business ventures thrive in rural India “.

Rural BPOs are aimed at providing cost-effective solutions to foreign companies that want to outsource their work. Where Indian and foreign companies might have looked to other countries for competitive deals, rural BPOs ensure business stays in India according to the article. In 2008 Murali Vullaganti founded RuralShores with business partners including Chennai-based entrepreneur R Sujhata, who was the architect of the rural BPO model in Puttaparthi in Tamil Nadu state. It got a shot in the arm after one of India’s leading banks, HDFC, bought a substantial stake in the company. Mr Vullaganti says his company could offer savings of up to one-third on city BPO centres.

The success of the rual BPO model is attracting city BPO workers with roots in villages. But with all its cost effectiveness and cutting edge advantage, rural BPO centres do not offer voice services. They focus on processing the documents of insurance companies and banks and handle the email queries generated on these companies’ websites. Nevertheless, the rural BPO is an ambitious project. Mr Vullaganti said his company planned to set up 500 centres all over the country in the next five to six years.

Educating Rural Indian Youths

Raj — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:28:49 +0000

Courtesy mckaysavage on flickr

Yahoo India news article titled “Giving young India a foothold into the future”. The leading companies in India have joined hands with the central government to improve the career prospects of bright young people from rural India. In a public-private partnership effort to be shortly announced, foundations run by Wipro chief Azim Premji, Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Group and others corporate chiefs will fund the coaching of school leaving rural youth to prepare them for engineering, medical and other technical entrance examinations.

Around 4,000 youth will be selected every year from a network of 576 schools across the country set up to promote quality education in the rural areas. The government and the private sector may share the cost equally.

This unique public-private model for education is one of the ways India can translate demographic challenge into demographic dividend. Still the number of rural youth wanting to get good education is very large and India needs to move aggressively in tackling this issue.

New Breed of Young Indian Entrepreneurs?

Raj — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:37:31 +0000

Business Standard article titled “Young India Does its Bit for Online Biz Model” reports that several members of Gen YRI are starting new online Internet companies. This looks like an Indian version of ‘dot com boom’. The article notes that, Juxt Consult report says that, four out of every five internet users in India are in the age group of 19-35 years. And, given the fact that India has 50 million internet users, the population of young surfers is 40 million. Factors like rising wealth and rising number of youth entering work force will only increase the number of Internet users. With meteoric rise of of mobile computing and development of new categories of computers like Netbooks and MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices), the number of potential customers in India will continue to rise. Thus, Online Business Model is a viable way to tap that growing market of savvy users. With a low startup cost, young entrepreneurs can implement their innovative ideas.

The article also notes that starting a business is still a risky proposition and hard for people to leave the security of a regular job and venture into something new and uncertain. These young entrepreneurs still have to overcome people’s skepticism of Start up. Still, the rewards are great and that’s what these new breed of young Indian entrepreneurs are focused on.

Youth will drive 3G market in India

Akshata — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:18:19 +0000

Kiran Kuchimanchi, senior vice president, Global Delivery, ValueLabs, says youth in India is extremely mobile savvy and will be the early adopters of the 3G services. Read the interview with him here. ValueLabs, a company that has been in the mobile space for the last eight years, is actively involved in the telecom sector building Intellectual Property (IP) in the areas of mobile video streaming, data services and other value-added services in 2.5G and 3G environments.

Young Indian business delegation to UK

Akshata — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:49:50 +0000

The Young Indian (Yi) is integral part of CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) which comprises of a group of young Indian achievers and professionals below age 40. Yi is leading a 15 member delegation to United Kingdom according to the article ‘CII’s Young Indians’ take delegation to the United Kingdom’. Yi through this venture is on a look out for opportunities to step up cultural exchanges between the two countries.

Bringing together young entrepreneurs from both the countries, the initiative will reinforce the theme of Yi while building bridges between both ‘Young Businesses’ and ‘Young in Business’. The representatives will share knowledge on Indian entrepreneurship, business strategy; which at present stands on the theme of ’successful entrepreneurship in scarcity’. The delegates from across different sectors will also be exploring partnership avenues in the UK according to the article.