10,000 CCTVs in BPO hub 'Mindspace' in Malad, Mumbai

There are as many as 10,000 closed circuit televisions (CCTVs) in the city’s unofficial BPO hub, Mindspace, Malad — the maximum number in any one place in the city. For a complex with an area measuring 371 acres, that’s one CCTV for every 15 cm!

In comparison, the airport, often a target of terror threats, has only 164 CCTVs along with 1,700 security personnel, while the equally sensitive Mumbai CST station has 30 CCTVs and 20 security personnel.

The complex has 20 buildings including BPOs, IT companies, two malls, several departmental stores and a few residential buildings. CCTVs are installed in the corridors, reception, porches and lawns of all the buildings, making it the most-closely monitored place in Mumbai.

“Our primary concern is to protect valuable client information. The data server room is the main area of concern and has maximum security,” said Paul Riley, Chief Risk and Governance Officer of Intelenet Global. Data theft is generally carried out by employees with access to computers and hand-held devices. Employees can copy and/or delete part of confidential and copyrighted information of the company through such devices.

The employees are thus subjected to random checks and strict airport-like access control measures. “We do not allow electronic storage devices like CDs, drives or DVDs. Cameras and camera phones are also banned. Employees are asked to pass through metal detectors and all bags and personal belongings should be kept in the locker facility provided,” said an official of a leading BPO in Mindspace.

“We also have 200 guards manning the area round the clock. The individual companies too employ their own security guards and set up their own electronic surveillance systems,” said A Mohite, security manager, Raheja Mindspace.

Though there have been no cases of data theft in Mindspace, companies have found the CCTVs useful in detecting petty cases of mobile phone and jewellery thefts.

“We have been given numerous presentations stressing on the importance of security. It has now become a part of our work culture,” said an Shweta Singh, a BPO employee. She added that she felt more secure about herself and her valuables with so many CCTVs and security around.

According to consulting psychiatrist Sanjay Kumavat, such surveillance can generate paranoia, leaving a person ill at ease in public functions. “They become patients of high anxiety and resort to cigarettes and alcohol to relieve anxiety.”

However Riley disagreed and said security was for the benefit of the employees. “It is our job to provide a safe and secure environment to our staff.”

Source: Mid-Day Mumbai Newspaper

Many companies recruit ex-employees if they had resgined and left, however, a company based in Malad west recruited a candidate thrice in a span of 1 year. You would ask us, what’s so unique about it? Well, then here is the uniqueness, Loyal Guard (Name changed) had absconded from this company twice before and this is the third time Loyal Guard has joined the company. Well for starters, ‘absconding’ means leaving the organization without intimating anyone in the organization; off course that occurs only after withdrawing the salary credited to your account at the end of the month.

What does this 3rd time recruitment signify?

We would all find it extremely difficult to believe that the HR department would be unaware of such a thing. The only reason the company recruited ‘Loyal Guard’ thrice was because they desperately needed fluent English speaking agents to join the organization as several of the processes needed agents to be filled in to meet the requirement.

It means that 'Recruitment', which is should be the HR department's Forte happens to be the Achilles' heel of the HR department of this company. We are not trying to be harsh on the HR department as we are all human beings and we are all fallible.

Was Loyal Guard recruited for the same process all the time?

No, the HR department of this company is very caring, considerate and smart. They want their employees to be multi talented. Loyal Guard was recruited for a different process every time he joined the organization. Loyal Guard has a finger in every pie! This is what we call lavish spending on training. The person who recruited Loyal Guard should only hope that Loyal Guard remains true blue to the end and is able to cut the mustard.

Did anyone recognize Loyal Guard in the office premises?

The company in question has its operations in different buildings in Malad West, Mumbai. The HR department of this company, as I said before, is extremely considerate. They ensured that the all three processes that Loyal Guard was assigned to were based in different delivery centers (buildings) so that very few people recognize Loyal Guard.

The funniest part:

After joining this company for the third time, Loyal Guard received a written notice at home informing Loyal Guard that Loyal Guard has not reported to work since __ (date) and loyal guard must report to work as soon as possible or else Loyal Guard’s services will be terminated.

Is Loyal Guard still employed with the same organization?

Loyal Guard has requested us to keep the identity confidential and therefore we would not be able to reveal Loyal Guard’s whereabouts as we do not want to put Loyal Guard in a pickle.

We chose not to be harsh on the HR department in our article because BPO Curry beleives that we can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Mumbai Call Center Ratings by BPO Curry

Grade A:

IBM Daksh
JP Morgan Chase
Countrywide Financial
3 Global Services
Citigroup

Grade B:
,
Intelenet, TCS
Prudential UK


Grade C:
FirstSource, Convergys, eFunds, EDS,
Transworks,
Ocwens Financial Corporation

Grading Not Applicable:
(These companies need a lot of improvement)

Wipro BPO
Accenture BPO, WNS, Zenta
Sitel, Stream International, Sutherland Global Services (Suckerland is what some call it)


The call centers mentioned above are the major ones in Mumbai. Wipro used to be one of the best call centers in Mumbai back in 2003, when it was owned by Spectramind. Ever since Wipro has taken over Spectramind, the quality of people being recruited has declined tremendously. People who can't get a job in Grade A, B and C call centers would certainly manage to get a job in the above mentioned call centers that are ineligible for grading. The selection criteria is the most lenient in these call centers. If you do not beleive us, just walk-in to a consultancy where these companies conduct in-house interviews. You would be shocked to see the selection of candidates who can't even speak proper english. We have been witness to such shocking selections. In order to get a job in the above mentioned non-graded call centers, you do not need to keep your nose to the grindstone.

BPO Curry Rating: 2/10

Even though Accenture fails on most of the fronts, the Cafeteria in Accenture deserves to win an award, so BPO Curry team decided to award Accenture for providing the Tastiest Food in the BPO Industry.

Accenture (located in Vikhroli) is one of the major call centers in Mumbai with a dearth of decent English speaking crowd. Probably it is it’s location in central Mumbai that keeps away the majority of English speaking graduates residing in the western suburbs, north Mumbai and south Mumbai. Accenture Mumbai’s biggest process is a voice based Technical Support for a Broadband Internet Service provider in USA that also happens to be one of the major telecom companies in USA. Along with that, they also have a UK based voice as well as back office process, which isn’t that big.

Entry Criteria: If you speak English, even broken English, which may be grammatically incorrect, you still stand a good chance of grabbing a job at Accenture. Accenture is extremely lenient in its recruitment procedure. They do ensure that the people they recruit do not have a regional accent (exceptions are always there). It is not that Accenture does not have fluent English speakers. We interviewed one of the most fluent English speakers, who has worked with Accenture for nearly 2 months and she left the job as she was not satisfied with the company. Aastha (name changed) is a 26 year old girl with an excellent command over the English language and a diction that may even put many voice and accent trainers to shame.

BPO Curry: Thank you for your time, Aastha. Tell us something about the interview procedure for Accenture.

Aastha : Getting a job in Accenture is not that easy as it is made out to be. I gave my interview at a consultancy in Andheri west. It was an in-house interview. The first round was the ‘Free Speech Round’. There were 5 of us in the interview room. My friend and I cleared the free speech round after speaking on a topic of our own. There was a lady from North Eastern part of India and she was rejected due to her regional accent. The remaining two guys had a major grammar issue. After being short listed, the next round was a telephonic interview with the Operations Manager. The manager sounded as if he was asleep after doing a hectic night shift and was least interested in carrying on with a sensible conversation. The only question posed by him was “Do you know something about junk emails and ISP?”

The consultant helped me clear this round as I was briefed in advance about the possible questions normally posed by an Ops Manager. The answers to the assessment paper or the question paper provided to us by Accenture in the consultancy was provided by the consultant. So you can imagine how easy it is to fool someone. Can't say fooling, because Accenture surely was aware as to what it was getting into by letting the consultants conduct the written assessment. Once I cleared the telephonic interview, I had to wait for the HR to arrive at the consultancy for the final round of interview. She was there in an hour or so and I had a one-on-one interview with her. She asked general questions like “Tell me something about yourself”, “Why Accenture?”, “Why did you leave your previous company?”, “Your Salary expectation” etc. Once it was over, I was rolled out an offer.

The salary they offered me was the maximum they could at that time The take home salary was Rupees 14,700 (since I had 2 years experience), there was a joining bonus of 40,000 Rupees and a Retention Bonus of around 40,000 Rupees. The 20,000 Rupees out of 40,000 is received on completion of 3^rd month (You get around 17-18K after tax deduction + the monthly salary of 14700 rupees in the third month’s salary). The remaining 20,000 Rupees is provided in installments. You get approximately Rupees 6,666 in the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th month. The 7^th month, you get a salary of Rs 14,700 only and the eight month you get the 20,000 Retention bonus (based on your performance, you have to meet expectation), the remaining 20,000 Rupees of the retention bonus is provided after completion of 1 year.

BPO Curry: Wow! That was a good piece of information. I am sure many people would now be induced towards joining Accenture.

Aastha: I wish them luck in that case! I couldn’t stay in Accenture for a longer time, because I didn’t find anything good in the organization apart from food and Voice and Accent Training.

BPO Curry: We will come to the good part later. Were you satisfied with your first two month’s salary?

Aastha: I want to warn everyone out here. I was cheated by Accenture. When I received the offer letter, the HR told me that I would receive Rupees 14,700 for the first two months; however, it was not true. I received just over 11,000 Rupees as my salary, as Accenture deducted around 2500 bucks for food coupons which I never requested. They have a system where we need to register before a specific date to ensure that around 2000-2500 Rupees is not deducted from our salary. Since I joined on 27^th, Accenture assumed that everyone wanted to avail of Sodexo food coupons to escape heavy tax deduction. This was utter crap, what they called a major deduction didn’t amount for more than 150 Rupees. Everyone in my batch wanted 2500 Rupees to be a part of their in-hand salary, but we all were cheated by Accenture as we only got to know about this during our induction which was around 20 days after our date of joining. We all changed the option on their online system and chose to receive 2500 as part of our salary in the next month.

BPO Curry: That is really bad. We can understand what you all must have been through. Thank you for cautioning our readers against this bad policy.

Aastha: Not a problem. It is better that we all discuss the salary policy before joining any company, specially the ones located in the Central suburbs of Mumbai. (Laughing…..)

BPO Curry: Tell us something about your first day in Accenture.

Aastha: It may be surprising, but we didn’t have our induction on the first day. The official Induction happened only after the completion of 3 weeks of voice and accent training. The first day comprised of form filling, UTI bank formalities, document submission and Batch Allocation.

BPO Curry: Brief us on the Batch Allocation, please.

Aastha: The Batch allocation is very simple. Everyone residing in the western Mumbai was put in one batch and the ones residing in Central and Eastern Mumbai in a different batch. I got a great batch with many fluent English speakers.

BPO Curry: So how was voice and accent training in Accenture?

Aastha: I was lucky to get an awesome trainer called Vinita from CommuniK (A Vendor trainer who was not employed with Accenture directly). She was a beutiful fair Sindhi lady with a natural American Accent and a damn good vocabulary. There was one irritating chap called “Aseem” who was managing the assessment and he had a fake or a put-on American Accent. Vinita’s accent was wonderful. The Voice and Accent training was for 3 weeks which was extended due to training cancellation during Mumbai Blasts on 11^th July and heavy rains a week before that. Therefore, my voice and accent training lasted for 4 weeks. The training went on for 8 hours each day with weekly offs on Saturday and Sunday. During training, the batch of 20 something was divided into 4 teams and the entire training revolved around team activities. Vinita had lots of game in her basket of ‘Fun training’. Every day we used to listen to various American accents, songs, speeches and complete grammar exercises. We used to watch one American movie a day or 2-3 episodes of Friends each day. We had several presentations in team on American Culture, voice and Accent and Free Speech. The trainer provided us with 25 topics on which we had to prepare a speech of 90 seconds. We gave our mid assessment after 10 days and were given extensive feedback by our fantastic trainer.

The final assessment was taken by Aseem and it we were given some weird topics to speak on. Those topics were not listed in the 25 topics given to us by our trainer. 2 of my batch mates failed to clear the assessment conducted by Aseem. After the assessment, we were required to give client assessment over the telephone. The training co-ordinator was present in the room and we were required to record our voice on the Client’s IVR. Each one of us had to speak on 2 random topics chosen by the IVR and reading a few sentences that were process specific. Out of the 18 trainees who cleared the assessment conducted by Aseem only managed to clear the assessment conducted by the client. The remaining trainees were asked to give the assessment again. I was one of the lucky ones who cleared the client assessment on the very first attempt. The process training started after 3 days of boring induction where half of the attendees were asleep. The Managers who spoke were grammatically disgusting and their accent and pronounciation sucked big time. I started feeling uneasy when I saw people some agents promoted to SME (Subject Matter Expert) after spending 2-3 years in the company. In fact, with Accenture, growth chances are very bleak. You need to spend around 2 years to even think of applying for an IJP. In companies like BIM Daksh, you are eligible after 3-6 months. Many a times, good performers are hand picked in the first two months itself. Accenture sucks big time if you are looking out for growth.

BPO Curry: Aastha, thank you so much for the information. We really appreciate you giving us an insight on the training and growth in Accenture. It was quite an eye opener.

Aastha: My pleasure (….takes a deep breath)

BPO Curry: Tell us something about the Cafeteria and the Food in Accenture.

Aastha: I was just waiting for you to throw this question. I just loved the food in Accenture. Accenture has a huge Cafeteria on the ground floor in the call center area. It is huge and has 4-5 different caterers. Good News: Manohar caterers do not have a counter in Accenture. The Egg-Biryani available in the dinner is very popular. You get snacks and fast food at a cheap rate. A plate of Poha would cost you around 5-8 Rupees. Almost every food item is available in the Accenture Cafeteria. You name it and they have it, be it pastry, ice-creams, burgers, moghlai food or anything under the sun. Accenture deserves an award for providing the tastiest food in the BPO industry.

BPO Curry: That was elaborately tasty (…we started feeling hungry). Now let us come to perhaps the most controversial part – The Accenture Transport.

Aastha: Thank you so much for bringing this up. I have so much to say on this issue. The transport provided by Accenture is Pathetic. Let me give you an idea as to how efficient it is. The first day of voice and accent training was supposed to commence at 12:30 AM. We were told that we would get a call at 11 PM and the Cab would come to pick us up by 11 PM. I waited till 11:15, however nobody called me up. I was frustrated as well as worried. I tried calling up the Accenture transport helpdesk but their number was busy as usual. I kept on waiting and it was 12:45 AM now. I reside at Kemps Corner, Grant Road west, and it takes 1 hour to reach Vikhroli (Accenture) by cab. Out of frustration, I went to sleep at 12:45 AM thinking that they forgot to put my name in the transport list. Being a girl, I couldn’t travel alone till Vikhroli late night. I slept for an hour and my sister woke me up after an hour as the driver rang up my residence number at 1:45 AM. I took the cab at 1:55 AM and reached office at 3 AM. I thought that it was the first day fiasco and I didn’t blame Accenture for the pick up mess. However, it happened every day. The pick up was always delayed and adding fuel to the fire was the delayed drop. After the end of our shift, we used to literally fight with the transport department to provide us cabs. We always used to get a cab post 1 hour of our shift ending. This was ridiculous. We all made sure that we reach office on time, but Accenture didn’t ensure that we reach home on time. They were totally indifferent to our issues and concerns.

BPO Curry: That must have been such a pain, especially when the company is located in a remote part of Mumbai.

Aastha: It was indeed difficult.

BPO Curry: So how was the process training?

Aastha: Disgusting, pathetic, loathsome and sick! The trainer’s name was Sachin Parab. He was not at all sincere in his work. He didn’t teach us anything relevant. The process training modules were web-based where we were required to listen to a recorded training module on the computer and learn the process ourselves without any practical. The trainer was always our of the classroom busy chit chatting with other trainer or any girl from the training or HR team. Out of 8 hours of process training, our batch was on a break for 5 hours. The trainer was a lazy Marathi fellow whose communication skills were miserable and was least interesting in imparting any knowledge he had. After 3 weeks of process training, we didn’t learn anything and 3 of us decided to put down our papers as the training provided to us were less than satisfactory and we were not at all confident in taking calls. Accenture has just 1 day of mentoring unlike in other companies where OJT (On Job Training) lasts for even more than a month. Thanks to some really bad trainers like Sachin Parab, Accenture would keep losing good employees.

BPO Curry: You are not the only one to be dissatisfied with the training. We spoke with other ex-employees of Accenture as well who primarily left because of bad training. Even the joining and retention bonus couldn’t help Accenture retain those great employees.

Aastha: Absolutely, only those who can’t get any better job stick with a company like Accenture.

BPO Curry: Please elaborate on the exit formalities and how long did it take for you to receive the full and final settlement?

Aastha: This is very important. I want all the readers to pay attention to what I say. Accenture is the worst company when it comes to receiving your full and final settlement. In fact I made a wrong decision of leaving on 25^th. I should have waited for 5 more days and absconded after taking the salary. At least I could have saved myself from the Agony of receiving the final settlement after nearly 2 months.

Accenture promised me that it would take not more than 15 days to receive the final settlement amount. For two consecutive months, I had to send several reminder emails to the stupid HR lady named Dhanashree Sivalaben. She never used to attend any calls thereby leaving me with only one option – Emailing her. Even after several emails and calls, I didn’t get my final settlement amount. Note: This is ridiculous, but you must have internet access to check your email account daily for a stupid email from Chennai asking you to confirm your resignation. If you fail to reply them, they would not process the final settlement. One of my friends resided in Nagpur and was an outstation candidate who resigned along with me. She had not access to the internet and she relied on me to reply to their stupid email. There was one more guy from Mumbai who resigned with me. That guy sent an email to CNN IBN News channel complaining about Accenture. Only then did their HR department came into action and expedited our settlement procedure. It was an agony. Accenture was a nightmare.

BPO Curry: That is really disgusting. We hate it when our salary is even delayed by a day. You must have been really patient to wait for more than 2 months to get what was deservingly yours.

Aastha: It was a sad episode of my life. I am glad it got over soon.

BPO Curry: Tell us something we do not know about Accenture.

Aastha: Accenture is very particular about the dress code. They think that a human mind can only perform better if a person wears formal clothes. This is ridiculous. I do not subscribe to this rule of making formal wear compulsory during weekdays. I find casual or semi formal clothes more comfortable and I perform my best when I feel comfortable. It is the attitude that you carry to work that matters and not what you wear outside.

The washrooms in Accenture were not clean. They look like Sarkari Shauchalaya (Public Toilet) with bad floor and a terrible smell all over.

Every company insists on displaying ID cards carrying the company name. Accenture is stupid in this case. We get two cards, one is an Access card and the other one the ID card. We are not allowed to display the ID card; we are only allowed to display the access card without the company name on it.

The operation managers, the HR team, the process trainers kind of make you feel that the official language in the company is Marathi. Even though they have banners displaying English is compulsory on the floor, majority of the agents prefer to speak in Marathi or Hindi (not with the customers).

The crowd in Accenture is sub-standard. Many of the agents on the floor can barely construct a grammatically correct sentence; still they are there on the floor taking calls.

BPO Curry: Aastha, thank you so much for your time. I am sure your interview would prove to be very useful for people who are thinking of joining Accenture.

BPO Curry Rating: 9.5/10

IBM wins the BPO Curry's award for "Call Center of the year -2007". Thanks to the amazing work culture, lovely processes, friendly management and state of the art facility, it was not at all difficult to declare the winner of 2007's call center of the year award.

IBM Daksh was formerly known as Daksh eServices, which is one of the biggest BPOs in Gurgaon. Daksh started its operations in early 2003. Circuit City was one of their pilot processes in Mumbai, which unfortunately is no longer there in IBM Daksh.
Major Processes in IBM Daksh, Mumbai:

1. Orange – Wanadoo (UK ISP Process)
2. United Airlines (US Process for airline reservation)
3. CBNA (Citibank North America Banking Process)
4. eBay (Web based process)
5. Pine Valley (Back Office – Insurance Process)

Selection Procedure: Once upon a time, it used to be very difficult to clear an interview for Daksh eServices. Ever since IBM took over Daksh eServices, the selection procedure has become quite lenient. Gone are the days when even a little fumbling in your interview would have cost you a job. IBM is little bit lenient in its selection procedure. As long as you speak good English, you can easily clear an IBM or for that matter any call center interview.

Let us have a look at the interview procedure:

1. Applying through a Consultancy:

It is advisable to apply through a consultancy if you know that your grammar isn’t that great and you stand little chance if you have to face an ex-tempore round. Though I think it is not that difficult to crack the interview even through walk-in, it is always advisable to go through a consultancy as this would help you save your several precious hours. When a consultant calls you up for an interview with IBM, ask them if they have an in-house interview. If the consultant asks you to directly walk-in to Magnus Towers, Malad, Mumbai – Daksh office in Mumbai, straightaway refuse it as you would end up wasting your entire day appearing for several rounds of interviews which are often delayed either because the HR folks are lazy or they are busy chit chatting in the cafeteria.

When consultants call you up, ask them if they have any in-house interview. In-house interview means the HR from IBM Daksh visits the consultancy and interviews the candidates and the Offer Letter is given in the consultancy itself provided you carry all your documents (10^th, 12^th and TY Results, Residence proof like a copy of drivers license, ration card or passport, any one of them would suffice, and off course your previous experience certificates like relieving letter, salary slips and appointment letter)

2. Walk-in Interview:
Walk-in interview are also easy to crack provided you are confident enough and more than that you have patience to wait for several hours for the round of interviews to be completed.

Before you walk-in, check if you have any friends working in the company. If you have one, get in touch with them and get their employee ID and process details and write it on your resume if your friend agrees to share 50% of the reference money that he would get on your selection. This could range anywhere between 1500 to 2500 rupees or even more. Your friend would get the money only if you successfully complete 3 months in the organization. If your friend is not willing to share the amount, do not write his name or reference on your resume as you should not encourage or benefit someone who doesn’t believe in sharing. J

Coming to the interview, well first you need to register yourself on the 5^th floor of Magnus Towers, Mindspace, Malad West, Mumbai.

Once you are registered you would need to wait for the HR to attend you. Once the HR calls you, she would conduct a basic personal interview asking you same old stupid questions like “tell me about yourself”, “Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?” (Tell them you would like to stay and grow along with the organization). If you are a fresher, they would pose questions like “Why do you want to join a BPO?”

Do not get frustrated by these stupid questions, it is always better to prepare for such questions in advance. Learn something about the BPO Industry and then appear for an interview. Always remember that only a well-prepared horse invites someone to go riding. So before you even think of taking the HR for a ride, be prepared thoroughly.
Once you finish the personal interview, you would be asked to speak on any topic for 3 Minutes and you would be asked to record your voice. Always choose a simple topic on which you can speak for a while. The recording you do would be the basis of your batch allocation for voice and accent. If they feel that you need more time for voice and accent training, they would give you a batch that lasts for 5 weeks. If your vocabulary, grammar and pronounciation is great, then you would be put in a fast track batch where the Voice and Accent training would only be for 2 weeks.

The Salary offered by IBM Daksh:

A fresher would draw around 11000 to 13000 take home salary and an experienced candidate would get 17500 Rupees in hand (including the attendance bonus of 1500, if you are absent for one day you lose 750 Rupees and if you are absent for 2 days, you lose 1500 Rupees). If you are selected for a process called United Airlines, you would be offered a retention bonus of 6000 rupees, which you would receive after 6 months. May be the bonus is also available in different processes now. Apart from the salary, you would be eligible for performance incentive which may range from 500 to 3000 rupees depending on your performance after you complete the voice and accent and process training.

The Voice and Accent Training:

IBM Daksh is one of the few call centers that take voice and accent training seriously and at the same time make it an unforgettable experience. IBM Daksh’s voice and accent training module is perhaps the best in the BPO industry. Once you go through the soft skills and voice and accent training in IBM, you would certainly come out as a real winner. If you get a 2 weeks pre-process training batch for 8 hours each day, 3 hours would be dedicated to Voice and Accent training and 4 hours for soft skills training. Many a times you get two different trainers, one for VNA (Voice and Accent) and one for the Soft Skills training. IBM Daksh’s trainers are extremely talented. The best trainer in IBM is Sienna D’Souza. She has a commanding voice, awesome diction, brilliant vocabulary and she is an ocean of knowledge. She would ensure that your soft skills improve by leaps and bounds in 2 weeks. I must say she is the best trainer in IBM. No other call center would provide you training on how to handle customers who directly insist on speaking to an American/Brit or someone who refuses to speak to an Indian.

At the end of the first week of pre-process, you would have to give a mid assessment. It is easy to clear this assessment as the trainers would provide extensive training and ensure that you are thoroughly prepared to appear for your assessment. You would be marked on an excel sheet filled with 15-20 parameters and it is not difficult to clear the assessment if you concentrate in the training. Apart from Voice and Accent trainer and soft skills trainer, you would have one more trainer for 2 days for culture training which is Fun, Fun and more fun. After the end of two weeks, you would be asked to appear for the post assessment which is not conducted by your trainer. You would be required to clear two assessments. One would be the Voice and Accent and the other one a Soft Skills Assessment. To clear VNA, you would be requested to speak on two topics (would be provided on the spot, though they would be simple ones like what if you were granted 3 wishes, etc) and to clear the soft skills training (Hshh this is tough one to crack), you would need to clear a mock call (Process specific mock call). IBM would provide you awesome training to clear the assessment.

Note: Even though majority of processes in IBM are US processes, they do not insist on speaking in an American accent. They teach you a global accent and focus on globally comprehensible English.

The Dress Code:
Jeans, casuals, T-shirts, formals, jackets, blazers, anything decent allowed. Just ensure you do not wear Bermudas and come to work.



Food:

Food in IBM is quite expensive. A non-vegetarian meal would cost you 30-35 rupees and a vegetarian meal around 25-30 rupees. However, you get a variety of food in IBM Cafeteria on the 4^th floor of Magnus tower. There are 2-3 different caterers providing a variety of food. The fast food you get in IBM is one of the best. Fast food is quite affordable too and you get good quality food for the amount you pay. Thank god, IBM got rid of Manohar caterers. Manohar caterers are there in almost every other call center and provide pathetic food at a not so cheap rate. Pani Puri and Frankie taste awesome. There is a 21 inch Television as well and a Citibank ATM in the Cafeteria, which is crowded on 31^st for obvious reasons.

Transport:

Offers home pick-ups/drops from 10.30 pm to 8 am. Other timings have a station pick-up and a drop to Malad station. They also have a centralized pick up and drop. The Centralized pick up is from Mira road station, Kurla station and Bandra station. (Please confirm this from the HR before joining). The transport is quite efficient and not many people have issues with it. During summer, A/C Cabs are offered for a pick and drop to the employees.


Things You Didn’t Know:

United Airlines has 5 weeks of process training and 2 weeks/5 weeks of VNA. So you would get 2 salaries only to get classroom training.

United Airlines is the process where you can earn the most through overtime, goodies offered, Client incentives and company incentives.

Do not get too excited by the above two points, the fact is that United Airlines has one of the highest attrition. There are back to back calls and the process is very vast and not many would find it easy. However, the process is fun and you get to learn a lot and it provides you a great platform if you plan to venture in the Airline Industry.

The IJP (Internal Job Postings) are very frequent in IBM and loyalty pays here. If you stick with IBM Daksh for more than a year, you are bound to grow either vertically or horizontally.

Orange Wanadoo is said to be one of the most chilled out processes. The call flow isn’t that high and the people are extremely cool in the process. If you are looking to make quick money, UAL (United Airlines) is the best.

CBNA is said to be a vast banking process and isn’t that happening, but one of the most prestigious processes in IBM at present.

eBay: This process has shifted to Prism Towers (located behind Intelenet) is a web based email support process. The crowd here isn’t that great and spoken English is given less importance here.

The washrooms in IBM are extremely spacious and clean. However, some there are people who have no work but to pluck hair in the washroom. Dirty people, get a razor. Mach 3 doesn’t cost much these days.

The entire pre-process training is now conducted in Prism Towers. If you are an Airtel user, then you would have a tough time getting network in the office premises, because Airtel’s network sucks.

The Bench thingy is quite popular in IBM. It means if 20 people are in VNA and 5 of them are from UAL and after they clear the VNA training, they are put on bench until the strength of the UAL batch reaches 10 or more. If you are put on bench, all you need to do is report to office for 4 hours, roam around in the office premises and go home. What’s more? Well, you actually get paid for being on Bench. The bench might last for a week or more depending on the scenario.

Nelofer Fernandes is the best process trainer in UAL process. Trust us, if you are in her batch, you are bound to have lots of fun throughout the 5 weeks of process training. She is one of best trainers in IBM or should we say the call center industry.

If you are thinking of joining IBM Daksh, kindly walk-in with a copy of your Resume at the following address:

Magnus Towers, 5th Floor,
Mindspace New Link Road, Malad West
Mumbai - 400 064
Ph: 91 22 4060 5677