New marketing in Kashmir

If it is still serious about preserving borders, the Union government needs to dim its patriotic pitch and replace the spiritual sadhu with a good marketing guru instead

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

Last year, as I visited Kashmir with my family, every few feet we came upon army officers and their bunkers. That did not jar us as much as their signs though.

“Proud to be Indian”

“100% Indian”

“Jai Hind”

Really, all the Indian Army needed to drive its proverbial stake in the land any further was a map including Kashmir in our borders, drawn bold and thick. (Of course, they save that job for illustrators of school textbooks.)

“Do you think the army needs an advertising firm to help soften these messages up a bit?” I asked my brother on that holiday. “Because, somehow, I don’t think these slogans are winning anyone over.”

Fast forward 14 months to last week when the Union government despatched its brand ambassador du jour to resolve the conflict. Secular mediator or politically savvy negotiator? Neither, they sent...Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

As in the man behind the Art of Living Foundation, which admittedly does some good social work and has taught a lot of chief executives the art of the chill. But hardly a secular figure. In fact, a 2003 article in The Economist detailed the blurry lines between the teachings and reality among Hinduism’s so-called godmen, saying it was very difficult to separate Hindutva ideas from Hindu sages, the spiritual from the religious.

“On the issue of Ayodhya, for example, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar might be expected to urge compromise on his Hindu disciples. He has a huge following, a message of universal human values and access to, as he sees it, ‘desperate and helpless’ politicians who ask him for a blessing and spiritual support,” The Economist wrote. “Art of Living, moreover, is open to people of all faiths. But, in fact, discussing the Ram temple, its guru starts to sound less like a spiritual leader and more like a politician, talking of the long history of ‘appeasement of the minority community’, and of the unfairness of a system that subsidises Muslims to go on the haj to Mecca, while making Hindus pay a fee to take a dip at the Kumbh Mela.”

Shankar used similar logic last week, finding himself in a Muslim-majority region and imploring the state government to provide basic facilities to Hindu pilgrims visiting the Amarnath shrine. In letters he wrote, as reported by The Hindu newspaper last week, Shankar also made the controversial suggestion that if Kashmir remains in favour of autonomy, Jammu and Kashmir should be made into separate states, echoing long-standing demands of the Hindu religious right.

But, of course, Shankar himself insisted, along with the government ironically supporting him, he was there on a mission of peace.

For a moment, let’s put politics and religion aside — impossible as that may be in Kashmir. Judged on solely dispassionate grounds, say in the sphere of a business (the government) trying to gain a consumer (Kashmir), it becomes clear India has failed on many levels — the greatest failure of all its inability to win over the Kashmiri people. It’s not for lack of trying, from crores of rupees poured into the region and goodwill missions that fly Kashmiri children around the country to see what they are missing. There have been countless peace summits and much humanitarian aid, especially during the 2005 earthquake.

Yet, as a marketing campaign, India’s strategy in Kashmir needs some work.

Since I’m no marketing expert, I called the best one I know. He’s in Mumbai but his communications office caught one word of my question (the K-word) and said he couldn’t be consulted. Thankfully, he agreed to talk on condition of anonymity.

“I don’t think the government has done even a reasonably good job in the way of communication here,” he said. Over the last few weeks, it’s gotten worse, he noted, citing surveys showing that even the rest of India is sick of the issue, even ready to give up the region.

I am not taking a stand one way or the other on Kashmir’s fate — let them stay, let them go — but if the government has decided it values the valley, then at least make an attempt to get the messaging right. Slogans amounting to “we own you” are counter-intuitive. How about something to the tune of, “We’re on your side, too.” Or, “Come join our team. We’re winning right now.” How about a brand ambassador who doesn’t plan a rath yatra next month on behalf of mostly Hindu causes?

The more we try to shove India down the throats of Kashmiris in the valley, the more they are going to head over the hills in the other direction — to Pakistan. Already, this week, the green flags begun waving.

If it’s still serious about preserving borders, the Union government needs to dim its patriotic pitch and replace the spiritual sadhu with a good marketing guru instead.

Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

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Please, Airtel, Hear My Call

Merely complaining about the sorry state of customer care in India will not solve much

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

The headline, quite frankly, scared me: “Bharti Airtel set to increase outsourcing.”

An article in Monday’s Mint detailed Bharti chief executive Manoj Kohli’s plans to hand over even more of the company’s internal processes and functions, such as human resources and billing, to a third party. While media coverage of the Bharti success story has breathlessly marvelled at its ability to cut costs and scale up quickly by farming much of its work elsewhere, I have often cursed customer service at the mobile giant and blamed the said model for my woes. If you need any service — a plan change, an enquiry about an old bill, a desire to understand why something, somewhere, might not work — it becomes readily apparent that one hand (i.e., the third-party services provider) rarely talks to another, let alone five fingers acting in sync on anything. That is why five different people call on the same issue, but you can’t find one who has the right answer.

But merely complaining about the sorry state of customer care in India won’t solve much. And so over the next few months, I plan a few columns that will dissect the issue from multiple vantage points, effective service to worker training to the examination of our own high expectations in an economy that has galloped uphill. In my findings so far, the undercurrent of good service is an empowered work force — those who interface with customers have been given the tools, confidence and information from the higher-ups that they can appropriately defuse the situation at hand. Simple but effective. And sadly, very rare.

A lack of empowerment is why a waiter cannot give you a free drink or dessert, even as he mixed up your order. Or why the bank declines the signature on your cheque, even though you have proof showing you are who you say you are and verify the amount. Or why a customer service representative directs you to Airtel’s website, which will require you to hope she really text messages your password, instead of sending you a duplicate bill from May.

On that note, let’s return to Bharti.I asked a former manager at the company, a self-described “die-hard loyalist”, why things were so bad.

“It’s awful,” she said bluntly, requesting anonymity. “The service executives are outsourced...so they don’t feel an iota for the company.”

The problem is hardly Airtel’s alone, as global outrage over outsourcing — xenophobia and job security aside — comes from the same hunch, that agents “don’t feel one iota” of your pain. Sure, there are the accents, the distance, the misunderstandings. But mainly, there’s a lack of a connection.

They are not a part of the same work culture of the client company, nor do they have incentives to climb up its ladder. Meanwhile, business process outsourcing firms have not mastered yet how to plug growth opportunities , tap into worker potential and truly partner with their clients.

One software firm I visited recently tries to duplicate most roles in the US with a person in India; so besides the majority in customer support, there’s sales, product management, marketing, even accounting. What does that do? It prevents the teams in different countries from seeing the US as client and the Indians as those who kowtow. It forces the workplace to integrate across departments, across countries, and sometimes both at the same time.

So would it be better if Airtel’s operations were captive, or in-house?

Not necessarily.

In fact, a report last year from analyst firm Forrester Research found more than 60% of captive BPOs (business process outsourcing firms) were not in healthy shape; it predicted that by 2009, more and more companies will shelve their captive models in favour of third-party players, notably in customer support.

So maybe Bharti has had the right idea but wrong approach?

Interestingly, Jai Menon, director of customer service and information technology for Bharti Airtel, wouldn’t totally disagree. I asked, point blank — how do you think customer service is going?

“The most important pillar of our company is service... We’re not at cruising altitude yet,” he says. “But we are rising towards it.”

I appreciate his honesty, even empathy, and ask how Bharti will do it.

He says the plans to increase outsourcing rest on using a fewer number of service providers but more people. To me, that made sense. So hypothetically, if all the services I need are handled by IBM’s folks, then maybe the other firms contracted by Airtel will stop calling or messaging me after I have already paid my bill?

Right, he says, but Airtel must also ensure the technology backs them up to truly streamline and smoothen processes. He concedes those workers need to feel a part of “our DNA... We view them as part of Airtel.”

For my sake, but also for the company’s future, I hope they feel the same.

Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com

Forget jobs, find purpose

I believe in lifelong learning and not spending on learning that does not work and actually keeps one from working

Wider Angle | S.Mitra Kalita

What could possibly be the downside of more children in schools?

Not too long ago, in 2001, 32 million children didn’t attend school. Then the government announced a universal education programme, or Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and today enrolments have soared to about 96% — 7.1 million in 2006. There are still problems, such as dropout rates and continuous funding battles between states and the Centre, and the fact that many children go to school for the free midday meal alone. But the statistics are impressive and speak to some changing aspiration levels in this country.

That, according to some experts, is precisely the problem.

Last weekend, I travelled to Jaipur for the Rajasthan Skills and Employability Summit and the issue formed an important backdrop to discussions on vocational education and what employers want. Experts detailed a scary state of social unrest with unemployed youth feeling like they have been shut out of the Indian society that pervades their television sets, magazines, advertisements.

They turn to education as their great hope, their equalizer.

“There were 40 million kids once out of school. Now there are four million,” said NIIT chairman and co-founder Rajendra S. Pawar. “Can you imagine the hell that will break loose with expectation?”

If you’re cringing at his words and my rendering of them, I understand — I did the same at first. Don’t we want them to dream?

But stay with me and his thought. The problem is that the first-generation learners, if they complete class VIII or even all the way through class XII, are going to learn something millions of Indians already know, at least the three-quarters of them deemed unemployable: Their education is worthless. If India’s approach to schooling does not keep up with their expectations and industry’s, then we really are heading for a crisis.

We have expanded the users of our education system, but we have not expanded that same system’s utility. And so it has become necessary for graduates to go on to finishing schools, to training academies, to certification courses run by the private sector. And then we slip into this cycle of funding education, then funding courses to fix the education, then funding skills development, then funding training to keep up with technology. It’s just not an expense for taxpayers but also for the poor Indian, the one whose livelihood we are all trying to improve.

In my 22 February column, “Develop skills and minds,” I wrote “Shouldn’t a liberal arts background at least instil the ability to input, analyse and produce — the very basics of a job? ...the 11th Plan’s spending must inspire Indians to embrace more than degrees or skills — but true lifelong learning.” (See www.livemint.com/skills.htm)

So I believe in lifelong learning — but not spending on learning that doesn’t work and actually keeps one from working. Consider the semantics. How do Indians refer to their degrees? Not as education — but their qualification.

“Qualifications are not why you are in a job,” said S. Chandrasekhar, head of human resources for Capgemini Consulting India Pvt. Ltd. “Skills are. It is better to be the best sweeper than to be a mediocre engineer.”

But try telling that to someone who could have gotten the job of sweeper without any degree or diploma.

“I still believe the majority of the country is struggling with the change of vocation,” continued Chandrasekhar. “We have a clerical mindset, to get a secure job, the air-conditioned office..”

Indeed, the buzzword of this year has been jobs: jobs for land, job centres, job training, job hotlines.

Our promise of “jobs” is a part of the problem. Remember what we used to call it, that question my farming or contracting (read unemployed) cousins and uncles all dread: “So are you in service?”

Here’s my replacement: purpose.

Let’s promise purpose and stop separating education, training, vocations and “jobs”. Instead of letting first-generation learners enter the absurd pressure of arts versus science, we need to have a conversation, say by class VI, when dropout tendencies begin. It can be simple questions, such as “What do you like to do?” And then a skill can be imparted, alongside Tagore and civics, which I fear are often shafted.

Perhaps the divide between training and education made sense when only rich people went to school. But as the government and industry begin their massive roll-out of training institutes and model schools and guarantees of jobs and education, they need to send a message that all of the above go hand in hand. All are worthy.

And let’s not get bogged down in technicalities ourselves. In a nation of more than one billion, many of whom have come to see a degree as their ticket out and up, what stops us from expanding the idea of a bachelor’s degree to the so-called vocations? If we can offer it to astrologers, we can surely do the same for plumbers.

Your comments are welcome at widerangle@livemint.com