Outsourcing: Matthew Heim, President of NineSigma (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Who is your typical buyer on the customer side? Is it the head of R&D?

Matthew Heim: Most cases, the chief technology officer or a direct report to the chief technology officer. We are starting to sell more to business unit leaders, presidents of business units and chief marketing officers for very early stage market research. In addition to the intermediary type services we do, we also do technology intelligence and develop technology intelligence landscapes for clients. That’s very appealing to senior management and CMOs, chief marketing officers, in our client organizations. >>>

Outsourcing: Matthew Heim, President of NineSigma (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like you are working more in manufacturing or maybe the health care space?

Matthew Heim: It’s virtually every manufacturing industry that practices open innovation. We work with all types of companies, but of late, the service industry has begun to open up to open innovation, financial services, insurance companies, and the like, and nonprofits that are conducting research in particular areas. For example, we just found work with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). We are working with an NGO called LAUNCH that is supported by Nike, USAID, the State Department and NASA to find alternative global energy solutions. There is a lot of other types of organizations that are really starting to pick up as well as the government. Not just the U.S. government, but governments around the world are now participating. >>>

Outsourcing: Matthew Heim, President of NineSigma (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Now that I have the basic framework, let’s start peeling the onion. Help me understand more of your business, and help the audience understand more of your business.

Matthew Heim: Sure.

SM: So, it sounds like you have created a global network of solution providers through academia and other kinds of research and development organizations is that accurate? >>>

Outsourcing: Matthew Heim, President of NineSigma (Part 1)

Do you have a problem you can’t solve and can’t find anyone anywhere in your organization who can solve it? There’s no app for that, but there is a company that can put you in touch with a host of people with the knowledge and experience needed to help you. No matter what industry you’re in, NineSigma can connect you with the right people to answer questions and spark innovation. Founded in 2000, NineSigma is a global company based in Cleveland, Ohio, with additional headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, Tokyo, and Melbourne. The company also has a presence in South America and Africa. >>>

Outsourcing: Manish Dugar, Senior VP And Global Head Of Wipro BPO (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: My question was somewhat different. For instance, a lot of the crisis in this round concerns sovereign debt and government debt, right? Whether it’s at a state, level, city, or municipality level, there is a debt crisis and deficit. So, there is a need to cut government spending. Do you expect that to translate into several, let’s say state governments? The government of California has a lot of problems with its budget. Is California likely to come and ask you, Manish, could you help us get employees off our hands, but you have to keep the jobs in California? Are these the kinds of discussions you are in the middle of? >>>

Outsourcing: Manish Dugar, Senior VP And Global Head Of Wipro BPO (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: The telecom industry is looking very interesting in Africa.

Manish Dugar: Yes.

SM: Now, what is your read of the attrition trend in India. You have a lot of people. You have to manage very large workforces. What kind of attrition do you have to deal with? What kind of salaries, raises or wage inflation, are the dynamics metrics that you measure?

MD: I guess the amount of fresh talent that comes into this industry regularly is so significant that as long as you are able to get the talent at relatively similar joining salaries, raises do get taken care of automatically because of either attrition or growth. As far as attrition is concerned, I think it’s an  industry phenomenon. Some attrition happens from one BPO company to another, but a majority happens from BPO to outside of BPO. And many times as an industry where people come in, they get trained, hone their skills, move on to do things in other industries. >>>

Outsourcing: Manish Dugar, Senior VP And Global Head Of Wipro BPO (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. I have heard a lot of different perspectives on that one. There is a serious interest in having work done closer [to home]. Of course, maybe there is a bit of difference between pure BPO work and more development-oriented work; the time zone issue is more significant and so forth. But I guess there is one point that’s coming up quite a lot in my interviews. What is going on with the call center industry in India? What is your sense in that? Specifically, a couple of things, there seems to be a fatigue of working through the night. Is that a serious issue that you are seeing in your workforce? >>>

Outsourcing: Manish Dugar, Senior VP And Global Head Of Wipro BPO (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How much of your business is catering to the India market, Manish?

Manish Dugar: At this point, it is miniscule. It’s less than 5% of the BPO business that is [from] customers; however, we intend to get to a model where in we get similar profitability and buy outsourcing work,  we also get similar profit per person by doing work for India. Otherwise, it goes against the grain of our entire philosophy of nonlinear growth.

SM: You are saying you want to reduce some of your dependency on foreign business and create Indian business, but you don’t want to change the profitability structure of that business to do business in India; you still want to maintain similar profitability structure?

MD: You are right on the latter part, which is that I want to come up with a delivery model and a cost structure that can deliver to me same average percentage and average per person, even by delivering to India customers. However, it is not to say that I want to reduce my dependency on foreign business and grow India business alone. >>>