26 Oct 2002

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Staying Alive, Both Sides Now!

~ Subhorup Dasgupta

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Dear Friends,

This is a continuation from Subho's article, published in the last
two issues. To read earlier MT India Newsletters, see the archives
at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MTIndia

Enjoy !
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Continued from last issue...

Now that the client is ready to use your services, let us see what
goes into getting his reports back to him from when he dictates.
You need sophisticated (and costly) equipment to dictate into and
convert the dictation into the format of your choosing. Often, you
have to walk the client through how to upload the files to your
server. Some operations even place an employee at the client's
site to help him or her out through the initial period. You need
people to download the work and keep it ready for our morning.
What happens after that is interesting because most people I know
compare the 7-15 cpl that is offered by the dictator to what an
Indian MT makes per line. You and I know that one person listening
to the dictation here and transcribing it and sending the report
back to the client is an exception rather than the norm. Most
companies in India have only few such clients. The bulk of reports
go through at least two or three levels, with inputs from as many
as four or five people. The various terms that we have scattered
in the industry is proof of this, we have MTs, proofers, editors,
QA1s, QA2, and what have you. The final reports need to be checked
for correctness in all areas, encrypted and delivered to the client
on time. Add to this the support staff in the form of shipment
folk, coordinators, administration, tech support, the list goes on,
and though the nomenclature might change from service to service,
the basic picture remains the same, especially so as the size of
the service grows. So the 10 cpl that the client offers, once
initial costs have been recovered, is really spread out among a
large number of people.

Then there are the people who have invested in the company. The
BO, by virtue of interacting daily with the crackpots that usually
haunt effective production floors, softens a bit with time and
tries to understand the situation on the production floor. But the
other investors, the people who put in money thinking they would be
sleeping on mattresses stuffed with dollars, want to see returns.
So down the line, maybe two years or maybe three, they cut into the
cpl too. So does the middleman if there is one. This brings us
back to the question, is it the CT then who is truly getting the
thick end of the stick?

Let us look at our CT, albeit a representative sketch. He or she
is a graduate or a post graduate, has a good grasp of the language,
good communication skills, cares deeply for the "meaning" of the
work he or she does, usually has interests outside of his field of
work, is capable of doing independent research, feels strongly
about things, has a big helping of pride in himself or herself. In
most MT services in India, these are the people who get ahead of
the rest and usually end up carrying the greater share of
responsibilities within the service, often covering up for the lack
of skills in others. Yes, I am talking about you.

........to be continued.
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Cheers!!! :)

Maj (Dr.) Amit Chatterjee, SM
Strategist/Founder ~ mailto:MTIndia@...
MT India ~ http://mtindia.org

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NEWS AND VIEWS :
-----------------------------

1) CBay India Arm To Recruit Over 4000 Agents For Healthcare BPO

CBay Systems (India) Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
CBay Systems Limited US, is planning to recruit over 4,000 agents
for its health care business process outsourcing (BPO) initiative
within the next 24 months. CBay is handling entire back-office
operations out of its Indian subsidiary while the parent company in
the US fetches business and chalks out the overall strategy for the
company.

"In the next 24 months, we need to invest $10 million to ramp up
our operations, for acquisitions and to strengthen our US
front-end," CBay Systems (India) Private Limited director Dinesh
Kumar told eFE. CBay, which recently acquired US-based $5 million
Advance Transcription - a medical transcription company for an
undisclosed amount, is now in the process of acquiring another
medical transcription company in the US.

"We intend to ramp up our Bangalore facility to house over 1000
seats and also the facilities of our franchisee in a 24 months time
frame," he said.

CBay's clients include over 40 large hospitals and clinics apart
from independent doctors. "Most of the medical transcription
companies are trying to sell out to companies like ours with HIPAA
certification as HIPAA is now mandatory," Mr Kumar said.

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=20370

2) Say Hello to Sanjeep, Er, Sam

Veer Sagar, CEO of Selectronic, a medical transcription company,
says that in his line of work his employees need not speak to
Americans but merely listen to voice files of doctors' dictations
and type out what they have heard.

Despite creating "an American ambience" by feeding his workers Coke
and pizzas on weekends and making them watch two Hollywood movies
every week, many in his firm cannot fully comprehend what Americans
say.

Veer remembers a doctor who had said, "the patient's salary is
twenty grand." The Indian transcriptionist on the floor typed, "The
patient's salary is twenty. Very grand."

Another worker wrote that the patient was "a base reporter" when
the doctor meant "ace reporter." Similarly, a doctor's analysis,
"He is fond of marijuana," became, "He is fond of Mary Yuvane."

And "the incident occurred while at Macy's Thanksgiving parade,"
became "the incident occurred while Macy was giving thanks to the
parade."

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55799,00.html

3) Hooking 'em up, for good

Gupta is happy with his salary, happy with the office hours he
keeps (between 11 p.m. and 10 a.m.) and is glad to have those three
hours in the evening with his friends. But is he happy with his
job? "So-so," he says. He feels that his highly acclaimed ITES
employer and the job he offers Gupta isn't any more exciting than
the front-desk position that Gupta held at a top hotel in
Bangalore.

It sure is a challenge, for, how do you keep the mind - of a
flighty 22-year-old just out of college, with a B.Com or a B.Sc -
engaged?

Now, churn is still unavoidable for most of these players. So,
wouldn't it become convenient for an employer to allow churn at the
lower level - after all, if skill is not going to scale up beyond a
point, especially at the entry level, then it pays to allow churn.
That way, you wouldn't have to keep giving salary hikes for the
same work done.

The industry gave a resounding no for an answer to the question
above.

According to Jain, "It may work to cut costs in the short term. But
over time, you are looking for domain knowledge. Why would you want
to let go of this knowledge, which no amount of training can give
you overnight?" The principals would rather not spend on training
and re-training. So, higher quality and higher productivity through
retention, and not lower costs through higher turnover, are the
key."

http://in.biz.yahoo.com/021022/17/1wqe4.html

4) MedQuist Reports Financial Shortfall for Third Quarter 2002

MedQuist Inc. fell 20 percent, or $3.74, to $14.76 on the Nasdaq.

David A. Cohen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "The
current quarter's shortfall was due to the challenging operating
environment, distractions related to the roll out of our New
Transcription Platform and significant resources involved in the
active integration of recently acquired businesses. We anticipate
that our fourth quarter results will not significantly improve from
the third quarter, but we remain optimistic that we can achieve our
2003 full year earnings growth goal of 15%. We continue to believe
that MedQuist is pursuing a solid strategy for growth and our
company remains extremely well positioned for the future."

On July 1, 2002, MedQuist completed the acquisition of Lanier
Healthcare, a leading provider of digital dictation systems and
services to the acute care hospital market. Cohen added, "Lanier
Healthcare brings to MedQuist a well established suite of products
and services and a solid base of recurring revenue. In addition,
Lanier Healthcare has a significant distribution effort including
65 direct sales professionals and a high quality research and
development team, both of which will be levered across MedQuist's
entire business to the benefit of our healthcare clients
nationwide."

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/021023/232102_1.html

5) Make the connection

Gurgaon, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore - the golden quadrangle of
India's next big hope, the $1.5-bn IT-enabled services industry,
tipped to grow to $21bn by '08. More significant than the revenue
projections is the fact that this nascent industry is breaking new
ground in ushering in an aggressive era of cross-industry
recruitment.

While the recruitment frenzy is evident at the entry level, it is
in middle-management that traditional recruitment practices are
being turned on their head. The shift in focus comes into play at
the stage when a call centre company begins to move up the value
chain into BPO services. According to Nasscom, BPO created 35,000
jobs during the last financial, against 33,000 in call centres.

The recruitment boom has given ITES its own set of problems.
Turnover or attrition rates are higher than anywhere else. HR
managers admit that people quit as fast as they come. "A good
company would have attrition rates of 25%, a bad company would have
40%," says Mr Lakshmikanth. In ITES, it is not unusual to change
three jobs in two years and manage a 50-100% hike in salary each
time.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?artid=25803
074&sType=1


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