The State of Sourcing

The Union Human Resource Minister, Kapil Sibal has taken it upon himself to completely overhaul the Indian education system… a good and long-awaited move. The Right to Education Act (RTE) was indeed a major development in the scheme of things. This is another move towards making education universal, as primary education, something that many of us take for granted is actually out of bounds for millions others.

Recently the Minister talked about the need to recruit 2 million teachers to achieve the goals set out by the Act. The other requirement would be more schools… schools where students are actually taught, and not just decrepit buildings. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also expressed a desire to build 6500 ‘model’ schools. This is where the private players come in. That the Government will need help from the private sector to successfully implement RTE, hardly needs an intelligent analysis. What is debatable is – Will the PPP work? How will it work? And how long do we have to wait before it makes an impact? The problem, we cannot afford to lose any more time.

Continue reading ‘How long before PPP bridges the education demand supply gap?’ »

Margin pressures are a sign of maturity (and commoditization) in any services industry. Publishing outsourcing is no different. Low entry barriers have kept the wannabes pouring in, relentlessly setting up shop, offering ridiculously low prices … to a point where it won’t work any further. However, that hasn’t stopped any more wannabes from joining the game.

While this phenomenon on one side of the industry spectrum has led to rapid commoditization of services, it has also galvanized creativity amongst players on the other side. Innovations in productivity enhancements, process refinement and proprietary product development has become the new mantra for industry leaders, in order to stay in a profitable game. Today, prices have dropped to levels that have pushed struggling players out of business, while the larger players are desperately seeking opportunities to grow.

Continue reading ‘The yin-yang of publishing outsourcing’ »