Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Record Revenues

Infosys technologies is one of the biggest software firms in India. It grew out of the Indian borders into various parts of the world. If my information is correct Infosys employs more than 100k+ people worldwide.

The success story of Infosys is projected in parallel to the growth of Indian economy. Infosys and its fabled leaders are highlighted at each and every opportunity by media. They are the brand ambassadors of Indian growth story when a foreign dignitary makes his visit and it seems a visit to the Bangalore facility has become mandatory element of protocol.

Then there is also values, culture and integrity story sold out lavishly. The leaders who refused to bribe the politicians, the manager who gave his father’s funeral a miss, the charity events organized around…

I have a handful of friends making their livelihood at the Infosys. And I get a few juicy stories which the ‘Shining India’ media missed out.

Very recently an American employee of Infosys sued the company apparently because his Indian colleagues were being paid less than him. Now don’t ask me why the Indians didn’t do the suing themselves. You know the depth of Indian guts and the strength of our spine.

An Infosys centre decided to give their Big Boss a parting gift before his retirement. They decided that the centre will earn record revenue for the quarter. Now how do you earn record revenue? By billing the client more. How do you bill them more? By working overtime. So employees are asked to come on holidays to earn the ‘Record Revenue’ gift.

Now when we talk about labor exploitation, it’s not just for the labor intensive sectors. The neo-method of exploitation is against the white collared professionals. They choose to remain silent for crumbs of money. Hence the unorganized and volatile sector reaps huge rewards for the bosses. Then we have been taught labor unions are behind all the evils of our country!

5 comments:

BK Chowla, said...

It is fact of life that Indians-at any level-are paid pittance compared to White expats any where in the world.
Fact also remains that we are amongst the most hard working people in the world

Anonymous said...

The company I work for are software consultants so we have huge dealings with Indian based firms. It is true that our consultants physically earn alot more - but by the same token the cost of living in this country is extremely high. Everything is relative.

By the way I had wanted to comment on a previous post but am still thinking of a good response - I think the question posed deserves more than an "I agree"!

Rachna said...

I agree with both BKC and jane's comment. We get paid much less but then our cost of living is relatively much lower.

OtienoHongo said...

I feel you on this one. In my country as well there is usually a few so called success stories that are used to show others how innovation, hard and integrity pays off. The CEOs of course are ably rewarded. Nobody bothers to check on the conditions of those who actually do the back breaking work.

On the issue of cost of living, I think most of the time the disparity does not really reflect on the actual gap of the costs of living between expats and locals. In my country some expats earn much more than they would probably earn in their country!

sm said...

well written
yes charge more to customers is the motto