Big Blues play at Daksh office

“We were afraid they would move us or fire us, but that doesn’t look like its happening. Besides, considering our high attrition rate in any case, its interesting that we’ll all switch jobs without quitting or hunting,” says Nikita Singh, at Daksh since November.

Still, its exciting that we’ll transform overnight from a plain Jane BPO outfit to a ’Business Transformation Centre’ run by a global giant like IBM, others contend. “I didn’t think I was going to be here for long. But working for the old Big Blue might be interesting. Maybe I’ll quit – or maybe not so soon,” says candid Saurab Jyoti, who has been with Daksh’s tech support ’process’ for a little over a year.

Maybe, just maybe, the management at Daksh will now be based in Bangalore, where IBM is, and they won’t concentrate on training them, improving their quality or hiring and firing them all that much, many others are hoping

Says Nitin, who says he’s the youngest Team Leader at one of Daskh’s three centres in Gurgaon: “Even IBM has 9,000 people. Imagine if they decided to mix and match. We might actually move between services and learn new skills. IBM. At the very least, IBM’s takeover is good news for those who are looking at call centres as a career plan.”

Says Anuradha Sanyal, part of a 170-strong tech support unit at the call centre, “There are 20-30 call centres in the city itself that are willing to absorb any of us. I’m 25, and career prospects do bother me but my field of interest is something else – software programming – until the real player came along. Now, maybe, I have a real chance.”

Both partnering firms are as tight-lipped on the matter as their employees are eloquent. “Everything depends on regulatory approval, which’s expected to come in around May. You’ll not see any immediate changes yet in the way Daksh is run,” said an official IBM spokesperson.

IBM is picking up Daksh eServices lock, stock, barrel and manpower, they’re obviously going to capitalise on the 6,000 people, particularly the top management.

And Daksh, too, promises it will wean in the workers slow and easy, taking care to make the transformation as smooth as can be. “We’ve started weaning our people into the changes already,” says a spokesperson.