Honestly, our initial impression about the state of this over-hyped industry was derived more from the contents of the emails that we received (and still continue to receive) in hundreds from the prospective entrants to the contact center business.

And these emails come from small businessmen in Kerala as well as senior executives in some of the biggest corporate houses in India. The content is more or less common and simple. "I/We have decided to set up a 100 (in some cases 20/30/40) seats. How should I/we proceed?"

Yes, more often than not, it is not "want to" or even "planning to" but "have decided to". And then we are supposed to tell them the details, in most cases starting with the minimum cost of set-up.

This, along with announcements after announcements about new contact centres, most of which have not even started a feasibility study, made us wonder—are we really serious about this business in India?

This thought and a growing number of queries from outside, especially the US, about outsourcing customer interaction to India, prompted us to do a Reality Check.

Let us admit, when we started focused research on the industry towards the end of March 2001, we had a lot of doubt, if not pessimism. After talking to different stakeholders in this nascent industry, we received a pleasant surprise. We found that the reality is much better than what we initially thought.

Sure, not everything is smooth. But then, that is true for any business at this point of time. More so for a business that is catering primarily to the US market.

But the business has established itself and is expanding. For a segment that was virtually non-existent a year back, to a Rs 390-crore industry (source: V&D estimates, which is much smaller than the NASSCOM estimate of Rs 850 crore), it has certainly grown.

We also found out who is doing well and who is not. Many of the companies doing actual business have kept a low profile. Some of them have hardly been covered in the Indian media, even for once. That also explains why a section of media of late, is beginning to paint a gloomy picture of this industry.

Voice&Data reconfirms its faith in the potential of the segment. In fact, that is where we start.

Shyamanuja Das