Outsourcing: Ed Cross, Executive Director – Procurement & HRO at Xchanging (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You said you have about 4,000 people in India. What’s the global distribution of the workforce?

Ed Cross: We have about 8,500 people around the world, of which about 4,000-4,500 are in India. About 2,000 are in the U.K., about 1,000 in Europe, several hundreds in North America, about 500 in Australia, and the rest are spread across 10-15 other territories which include Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia. We have smaller populations in each of those countries typically dedicated to the local customers that we have in those territories.

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Outsourcing: Ed Cross, Executive Director – Procurement & HRO at Xchanging (Part 1)

Having been awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year by The Economic Times back in 2010, Xchanging continues to provide leading solutions to a wide range of industries across the globe. Ed Cross, Xchanging’s Executive Director, takes us on a quick tour of the business outsourcing landscape discussing the trends, challenges, and opportunities facing the industry.

Sramana Mitra: So Ed, give us some background about yourself as well as Xchanging. What is your business? What do you do? What customer problems do you solve?

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Trend Spotting: Indian Outsourcers Coming To Rescue American Youth

I recently had a very interesting conversation with Wipro’s Roop Singh that made me stop and observe the subtle irony of what’s happening in the Indian outsourcing industry.

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Outsourcing: Arijit Bhattacharyya, CEO of VirtualInfoCom.com (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of where you want to go from here, what are your thoughts?

Arijit Bhattacharyya: I want to grow. I want to go into tier-three [cities] and to other countries that have talent and build institutes there, open offices there and recruit people. I don’t have a set goal.

SM: Why not grow your presence just in Bengal to 500 or 1,000 people instead of trying to open offices all over the country and in other countries? You can grow much faster if you just scale your basic model. >>>

Outsourcing: Arijit Bhattacharyya, CEO of VirtualInfoCom.com (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How many people are you training in this mode per year?

Arijit Bhattacharyya: Per year, per institute, it depends. But in Kolkata, we have 160 people; in Jodhpur, we have nearly 210. Pune is a new institute, so it has no more than five people.

SM: You don’t have that many people in your company, do you? >>>

Outsourcing: Arijit Bhattacharyya, CEO of VirtualInfoCom.com (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: This was a game that you designed?

Arijit Bhattacharyya: Right.

SM: And you sold it in the Kolkata market?

AB: Kolkata and outside Kolkata. >>>

Outsourcing: Arijit Bhattacharyya, CEO of VirtualInfoCom.com (Part 3)

SM: Got it. What software were you using, and how were you able to afford it?

AB: We didn’t use any kind of software. I had to write software to create animation. We didn’t have any kind of software for that.

SM: Interesting. You’re quite savvy technically. >>>

Outsourcing: Arijit Bhattacharyya, CEO of VirtualInfoCom.com (Part 2)

SM: They were farm workers?

AB: Yes. But that boy has talent. He is an extremely good painter. I found him while roaming near the river bank and saw him trying to draw a picture of a couple of fishes near the river. I asked him if he would like to learn drawing and animation. First, he asked what was animation. The second thing he asked was what is the benefit of it. I told him that I was not a big business person, but I had a dream that one day I would be and if he came with me, I could teach him and guide him and possibly improve his living conditions. >>>