Outsourcing: Million-Dollar Freelancer: A1 Future CEO Srish Agrawal, Kolkata, India (Part 1)

The founders of Elance, Freelancer.com, and others perhaps never envisioned that one day smart, industrious, and innovative contractors would use the freelance work platforms to build million-dollar businesses. Srish Agrawal, CEO of A1 Future Technologies created accounts on Elance and Scriptlance, which was acquired by Freelancer.com in July 2012, and before long, he found himself at the helm of a thriving Web development business.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Srish. Let’s start with your story. Where are you from? Where did you grow up, and what kind of environment did you start working in? >>>

Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 8)

Sramana Mitra: And the banking and financial services focus that you’re developing, is this going to be a global focus, or is it just North America?

Gopinathan Padmanabhan: It’s going to be global, absolutely global. In all regions, we are pushing for our presence in that particular space. We may not be the king of the world, but we are the king of the hill in the region we occupy.

SM: But that’s the only way you can compete in the market. You cannot be king of the world. >>>

Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What you’re describing is probably the case with all of your competitors, with the entire industry. They train internally for the core, and then they go outside for the more specialized stuff.

Gopinathan Padmanabhan: That is correct.

SM: We’ve covered quite a lot of ground. Is there any other area you want to discuss? >>>

Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What does it cost to maintain these residential boot camps? What is the cost structure of your training?

Gopinathan Padmanabhan: I don’t have an exact number. I can tell you that we provide them like a campus.

SM: It sounds like it’s a fairly expensive affair, right? >>>

Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: In your estimate, how big is the workforce in India in these tier two and tier three cities? How many jobs do you think are being supported in this mode?

Gopinathan Padmanabhan: I don’t have a number. If you asked me to venture a guess, I would say roughly 5% to 10% of the total IT workforce because BPO does employ a huge number of people.

SM: That’s  significant.

GP: It’s significant, but as I said, BPO employs a large number of people. >>>

Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What are the competitive dynamics of these cities? When you’re setting up a center in Mangalore, is it very competitive? Are there other Indian companies setting up operations in Mangalore?

Gopinathan Padmanabhan: Yes, there are. All of the key players are aware of the dynamics, the cost structure, and so on. Everyone follows the same strategy of spreading out their workforces in multiple locations. I told you the advantages of these locations. The disadvantage is a limited supply of manpower. While we do have the universities, the available people, and so on, there is a limit on the number of people you can hire and sustain in the location. What is the sustainable number of people I can manage in the location? I can go and hire 1,000 people, but can I maintain a workforce of 1,000 trained people and provide services and meet my SLAs while handling attrition? That is a challenge. >>>

Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Are most of your financial services customers U.S. customers?

Gopinathan Padmanabahn: As is the case for most of the typical Indian IT services companies, our revenues are split broadly across the U.S., India, and the rest of the world. The U.S. constitutes about 65% of our revenues. India constitutes about 15% to 17% of our revenues. The rest of the world constitutes about 18% to 20% of our revenues. That’s the rough split in the BFSI space also. >>>

Outsourcing: Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Executive VP and Head of Global Delivery, MPhasiS (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I see. So, you wanted to be in a space that is optimal to HP’s sweet spot, and you don’t have any conflict of interest when it comes to going to market through HP’s channels.

Gopinathan Padmanabahn: Exactly. That’s right. That’s the second reason. First and foremost, we are good at this, have several customers; we’re doing a great job, had long-term relationships.

SM: What percentage of your business is in financial services? >>>