Outsourcing: Ankur Prakash, Vice President And COO, TCS Latin America (Part 2)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Aditya Modi

Sramana Mitra: So, in terms of the evolution of outsourcing in Latin America, how do you manage the situation? How do you manage a region that is maturing late compared to India. The number of people with five or 10 years of experience is a lot fewer, right?

Ankur Prakash: That is correct, but there is also too much polarization of industries in Latin America. There are more than 3,000 IT companies across Latin America with fewer than 50 employees. So, you know, a lot of people have opened up these small companies that are serving the market in one way or the other. Whenever there is a chance for a professional to join a company like TCS, he or she is more than willing, is more than happy to do that. And it’s a fact that we are able to attract lots of talented people. We hire talented individuals and use them over a period in multiple projects, in multiple domains, in multiple industries, and in multiple technologies. There is no hire-and-fire policy; what we offer attracts enough talent for what we need.

Sramana: OK, so there are many different topics related to what you just said that I would like to talk about in more detail. Let’s go one step at a time. First, let’s talk about the types of projects you do. You said you are doing transformational projects; would you give me some examples?

Ankur: I can, but for confidentiality reasons I cannot name customers. I can definitely give you examples by industry. In the telecommunications industry, for example, we are doing lot of revenue assurance and billing systems projects wherein we are responsible to ensure than the customer is able to bill and invoice the end customer the very minute a transaction happen. So neither a penny more, nor a penny less. We have done it in the past, and we are also doing it currently so that we have improved at least 2%–3% of the total billing that has been done in that particular telecommunication sector for those particular customers we are working for. These are the kinds of projects that we are accepting and executing well across the region.

Sramana: OK, fair enough. You also said you are doing fixed-price projects. Does this include success-oriented projects, or since you are having such a significant impact on ROI? Do you also experiment with models that are success-oriented business models?

Ankur: Yes, that is one thing we do. But the more important thing is that all of these projects we accept and execute are fixed-price, fixed-scope projects with service level agreements. So, if we do not meet the service levels, obviously there will be penalties. And if we exceed the service levels, obviously there will be rewards. Any of those projects will incur penalties if we do not execute them well and rewards if we execute better than what the customer was expecting.

Sramana: OK, fair enough! Let’s go on to the next topic. You said you are recruiting largely from Latin America. Would you talk about the talent pool in Latin America and what you are doing in terms of training and so forth to make this workforce perform at the level at which you are making them perform?

Ankur: We have a presence across Latin America; it would be good to have the countries on record: Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. If you take a look at the demographics, there are more than 200,000 graduates coming out of these countries each year which we can tap into. There is a huge pool of resources. If you talk about their readiness, we have tied up with various universities across the countries, and we are actively involved in not only [getting involved] classes and customizing the curriculum but also giving training during their graduation period, so that when they come out they are much more ready for business than perhaps they were earlier. Then we put them in different countries, and we put them through rigorous training programs that are on average three months long. These programs cover not only technologies but also specific areas in the industry, specific projects, soft skills, and so on.

After this three-month period when they come out, they are ready as though they have been working with us for a long time. With all these factors combined, we find that there is a huge talent pool available, and we are the only company in Latin America that goes to the universities and recruits fresh graduates. That has also helped us to create a kind of image with the students. That keeps the students busy outperforming each other. It has really helped us to attract a lot of talent.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Outsourcing: Ankur Prakash, Vice President And COO, TCS Latin America
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