The State of Sourcing

This week I’m in the process of applying ValueNotes’ proprietary company rating model to the Indian e-learning outsourcing industry. One of the sub-parameters that companies are being rated on is marketing presence in key client markets, that will illustrate a part of the company’s overall strategic intent.

A quick summative analysis of Indian players reveals that the majority of firms (small ones, these) have at best a few marketing representatives in key markets such as US and UK. While the big boys have set up base and even moved beyond to expand in the Middle East and various parts of Europe, the rest of the industry has a long way to go before it can catch up!

Continue reading ‘Marketing e-learning online’ »

The outbreak of swine flu has sent countries, cities, people, media, the bureaucracy and governments across the world in a frenzy. In the context of publishing, the swine flu threatens to disrupt sourcing to countries such as India and Philippines.

So what can publishers do to counter potential disruptions in their sourcing?

Starting with in-house resources, the management has to draw contingency plans and preventive measures to ensure that workflows don’t get disrupted at any point. A few contingent plans include enabling employees to work from home, ensuring adequate cover in the form of temporary hires, or shifting workload to other offices.

Continue reading ‘When pigs fly…’ »

Indian writing in English in the trade category is becoming more accepted as also well-established, with acclaimed authors ranging from Naipaul, Rushdie, Vikram Seth to Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai. Indian English writing, if I may say, has arrived …! Apart from various other factors, the growing curiosity about different cultures and the stories of these characters has led to a growing readership… Imagining India undoubtedly interests…

However, this acclaim, honor as well as the moolah has eluded children’s writers in India – Are there fewer authors/publishers focused on publishing for children? Or is there a dearth of larger readership, or even a complete lack of understanding of the global market? With shrinking borders across nations and increasing globalization, there is growing curiosity regarding other cultures. I wonder why the Indian publishing industry does not consider children’s books as a viable opportunity for the domestic market as well as for exports. What about fresh stories in the contemporary Indian backdrop? Instead of repackaged old fables and traditional tales. Selling aggressively within your own market and some other can open up possibilities for collaboration in various ways. Translating work from other countries, getting your work translated to adapt and reach out… there can be limitless opportunities to learn and grow… profits ultimately! And in the bargain, it’s not just the publishers, but children the world over that stand to gain…

Continue reading ‘Children’s books – An ignored area?’ »

Getting up at 3.30 AM is not a good way for me to start my day… especially if I need to dress up in formals. But one flight to Chennai and twelve hours later, I can safely say it was worth it!

We, at ValueNotes Outsourcing Practice, arranged an executive briefing for our report “Offshoring in the Publishing Vertical: 2009” at the GRT Radisson, Chennai on the 26^th of June ’09.  What’s an executive briefing, you ask? Well, we start off with a presentation by one of our analysts on the major findings from the latest report (hence the need for formal attire). This is followed by a panel discussion where industry members discuss, dissect and evaluate certain prominent issues relating to the industry.  The topic we presented before the panel ( Prema from TexTech, Neeraj from PreMedia Global and Nanda from S4Carlisle) was themed around the future outlook of the publishing industry, specifically in terms of challenges and issues.

Vendor consolidation seems to be something that is playing on every publisher’s (and consequently every service provider’s) mind. Publishers are consolidating their respective offshore/onshore service provider base – Continue reading ‘Of executives, formals and publishing…’ »

Quality of work, data security and cultural differences are the key concerns for companies offshoring their market research activities. This is one of the findings of a research study by ValueNotes titled, “Market Research Outsourcing – Buyer Survey”.

Quality of work and data security are concerns for all services that are being offshored, including data collection, data processing, data analysis & analytics, report writing, panel services and project management.
Interestingly, a discussion with a senior manager of a global market research firm revealed an interesting fact echoed by other full service research companies and field work and tabulation companies. According to him, clients prefer to outsource data collection work to local companies.

To illustrate, a Singaporean client would get skeptical about offshoring his Computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) process to a company in India who would be calling guys in Singapore and Hong Kong for information on their shopping preferences.

Continue reading ‘Cultural differences keeping data collection clients at bay’ »

Recently I had discussions with managers at some leading publishing companies to assess why there is hesitance to offshore some creative services – especially book cover design, illustrations, image design etc. in a big way. I find that most responses are ‘colored’ … with their perceptions about outsourcing and that too ‘outsourcing high-end’ work … Until … I spoke to a small UK-based publisher who was sold out on the concept of outsourcing and has over the last two years managed to offshore his entire production, design and even sub-editing! And is happy being an almost ‘one-man show’ at his UK office.

A book cover design may cost anywhere from $100/hr upwards in the US, vis-à-vis half the cost of doing it in India. Sounds attractive? Definitely… Costs have always made sense for even non-believers of offshoring. However, that alone does not build the case for offshoring…!

Continue reading ‘Offshoring Creative Services – The Fitment Factor’ »

The new e-learning report released by ValueNotes (more here) places the revenues from the Indian offshoring industry at $341 million in the calendar year 2008, growing at a CAGR of 15% until 2012. Many readers will, however, interpret these numbers differently, and rightly so. We thought we should elaborate on our means of deriving the growth figures especially, given the multitude of plausible arguments and individual projections.

A pertinent blog post by Amit Garg, CEO, Upside Learning (found here) asserts that the industry will grow at a more bullish 25-50% over the next four years, driven by prominent players. Our primary research did throw up companies who have grown and will continue to grow at 50-100% (some even at 300 %!) in the future, but these were in the minority. Several companies, including one of the industry leaders, mentioned that they had static growth in 2008, with a spillover effect expected through 2009 into 2010. Companies mentioned that their clients were delaying buying decisions amidst the recessionary climate. Studies by bodies such as ASTD (2009) also hint at this trend, with fast shrinking resource allocations to training initiatives in the US, the biggest client market for many e-learning providers. Hence we believe the industry growth for India could be slow, at 10-15%, until 2010.

Continue reading ‘Growth in the Indian e-learning offshoring industry’ »