The Y2K crisis was the most talked about and debated topic during the late 90s and it had a potential to derail and devastate the whole global economy.
When computers were built, they came with internal clocks. These clocks rendered dates with just six digits- MM/DD/YY. That meant that they could go up to only 12/31/99. So when the calender hit Jan 1, 2000, the computers were poised to register that as 01/01/00 and not as 01/01/2000; and thus it would be 1900 all over again.
Thus the data recorded, stored and processed in the net were all under a threat as it was believed that all computers would shut down on 01/01/2000; thus creating a global crisis.
This computer remediation was a highly tedious job. Who in the world had enough software engineers to do it all?? Who in the world had such highly educated young people who were so hungry for jobs and opportunities? Answer: India with the graduates having studied from the IIMs, IITs, RECs and other private colleges.
And so with Y2K looking down upon us, the Indian IT industry evolved when the US companies 'outsourced' this Y2K upgrading to Indian technologies companies.
From here, started the great outsourcing or the highly talked about BPO, 'business process outsourcing' industry which took India by a storm and probably in my opinion gave birth to this new, modern India that we see today.
To explain outsourcing lets assume that I own a medium or large firm and i want to reduce the cost of many lesser value operations in my company. So what do I do??? I engage another firm which agrees to perform these regular functions at a much lower operating cost. In simple terms outsourcing means that you get some processes/ functions/ tasks of your company performed outside of it, from another company.
Thus in the beginning of the 21st century, after the Y2K upgradation by Indian technological firms, a lot of other jobs were outsourced by the american firms to the Indian companies. Some of the jobs outsourced could be as diverse as of the type-
1. BPO company in India; performing all the accounting works for an accounting firm in the US.
2. A credit card firm in US outsourcing its costomer care and telephonic marketing operations to India so that a customer in US gets his queries answered on phone.
3. Reuters, the news agency, whose name you might have seen at the end of articles in news papers, outsources the 'news breaking' and prima facie reporting part to India whereas it gives more stress on its analyses and research based operations.
4. Microsoft, Dell or IBM outsourcing their technical support customer care services to India.
5. Intel outsourcing R&D tasks to india for developing microchips for high speed broadband wireless technology.
6. Radiologists in US hospitals outsourcing reading of CAT scans to doctors in India and Australia.
7. Customer care services for tracing lost baggage for US and European airline passengers.
Thus as one can see a wide range of jobs with different applications and implications were outsourced and are still being outsourced to India. The main reason for these jobs being outsourced to India was India's cheap working force, a very high intellectual capital and proficiency in english among other Asian countries.
Thus an american dialing 1-800-Help, to enquire about the newest Microsoft operating system, thinking that he would wind up talking around the block, ends up talking to someone with a disguised Indian accent, half a globe away.
Thus this was as a brief idea of what outsourcing is and how it infused a new lease of life into India and its economy. I firmly believe that Y2K should be for india a second independence as it changed the whole outlook of india as a nation in the global arena, very similar to what had happened in 1947.
