About EVS

A round of filling in with the 'corporate' details...

I'm working at Evalueserve.com Pvt. Ltd., hereinafter referred to as EVS. It's supposed to be the leader of an industry segment whose bubble has just about started to grow. And EVS claims that they're the one who began blowing the bubble in the first place. Heck! They even christened it - KPO - Knowledge Process Outsourcing... yeah, yeah, it's outsourcing alright, but not of the Business kind!

So, what the fuck is a KPO? Well, technically speaking it is a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) outfit, in the strict sense of the term. BUT, and that's a big but, (notice - no extra 't'), the point is, almost anyone in India, specifically the Indian media, associates the word BPO with call centres. Or any other braindead job! EVS is not about receiving calls and telling the stupid caller for the frikkin' Nth time that he has to click the "Start" button to shutdown his computer :-)

Let me elaborate further. In any call center, the customer executives are given a set of questions, possible answers, and a fake accent. They use all three to answer mundane questions day-in-and-day-out! Everything is based on a rule.

KPO is different. It's a business process being outsourced alright, but the business process is not repetitive or rule based. It needs some input of knowledge. Let me give you a practical example. Try calling up your favourite call center and ask the person who answers your call to tell you the global market size of desktop printers in the year 2007. In all probability, your personal data is on the next flight out for a measly ten cents!

That's exactly the kind of job a KPO outfit does (the global market size part, not the other thing :-) It's something like offshoring the development of a software product. The team in India, China, Phillipines, whatever, needa more than a fake accent to code-up that piece of software. They need Knowledge. Domain knowledge to be specific. Only that in the case of a KPO it's not in software. It's market research, business analytics, financial analytics, data analytics, intellectual property services, and what have you.

Now, that you've got the basic idea of a KPO, let's get onto what exactly EVS does. EVS is into:

• Business Research (BR): They answer questions like "What's will be the market size of shoes in America in the year 2010?", "How many companies are there in the telecom sector in EU and what are their strengths and weaknesses?", etc.
  
• Intellectual Property Services (IP): They answer stuff like, "Here's a list of 500 patents that my company owns. Tell me which ones have the highest outlicensing potential.", "Here's what I think is a neat new invention. Please write me a patent application for it.", "Help! M$ has sued me for patent infringement. Please find prior art for M$'s patent so that I may get it invalidated and get my ass out of this hot soup!", etc.
  
• Market Research (MR): They're the BPO in the KPO :-) These guys don't answer questions. They ask. They sit in the office all round the night, call up people in US, EU, etc., and pester them to answer long questionnaires :-)
  
• Financial & Data Analytics (FADA): There's not much work at EVS in this department, that I know of. They're given lots of data and they're supposed to analze it :-P
  

I work in the IP department. I've written a patent application, done some prior art searches, assessed a few inventions for patentability, tried to invalidate a patent, and figured out patents with high outlicensing potential out of a given patent portfolio! Go figure :-D

Fotoblog ahoy!

Today was a 'gala' time @ office... not much work (as they say at EVS - "I was on beach") and I got hold of a digicam!



That's my office, neat and tidy, until you have a look at my desk, of course!



Corporate Modelling :-D We have a dress code @ EVS - formal trousers, formal shirt, leather belt, leather shoes, and tie! I have about eight of them - all from Big Bazaar for Rs 49 (Rupees Forty Nine) only!



It's getting cold in here! That's how I look when I'm feeling cold! I came to know recently that my cubicle's temperature is set at 23 degrees celcius! If you're wondering - the shawl's not mine - it sorta borrowed :-)




Two unsuspecting tiffins, moments before being devoured by hungry EVS employees... we have catered lunch @ RS 35 per meal and tiffins @ Rs 25 per tiffin. Lunch vendors are on a trial phase - so sometimes the catered lunch is amazing, and sometimes it's worse then Hall 1 food (which was good btw!) I stick to the tiffin - it's consistently good.

Lotsa stuff to right about working, working at a large company, corporate policies, EVS specifically - but I'm waaaay too sleepy right now!

Laterz...

It's review time folks!

Having a grih-pravesh back to my online blogging home with these easy going reviews...

Iqbal - A Story Above Cricket
After a long time has Bollywood come up with a movie which makes you smile, laugh, and cry - all at the same time. This movie is simply amazing (A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, in case you missed it!) With Nagesh Kuknoor (of Rockfor and Hyderabad Blues fame), Naseeruddin Shah, Girish Karnad, et al it's bound to be good.

Right from the first scene till the last, this movie keeps you glued to your seat, sharing the journey of Iqbal - a deaf and mute boy, the fact which is easily lost within five minutes of the movie - sharing his dreams of playing professional cricket for the nation, sharing his failures, his joys, and his sadness.

Don't skip this movie if you think that it'll be serious and the rona-dhona types just because it's about the struggles of a deaf and mute boy. If that's exactly what you're thinking, then for a minute imagine you're playing cricket and for some odd reason your captain has actually sent you in to bat! So you're on the pitch, all padded up, standing with your bat about a foot away from the pad. The bowler bowls a yocker right between that 'hole' and you come back to the pavilion even before the Maggi noodles are ready. So you're imagining it - right? Yes - so my point is, that the bat is what you're thinking about Iqbal, and the pad is what the movie actually is - and as Siddhu would put it - "The gap between bat and pad is so much that I would have driven a car through it..."

So you get the point!

The music is simply amazing - especially the "Aashayein" song... the melody, lyrics, timing, everthing about the song is amazing.

Shreyas Talpade, the boy who played Iqbal, and the little girl who's played his sister, both, have done an amazing job! Not to forget the female who's played the role of Iqbal's mother.

Net-net (new lingo that I recently learnt :-) everyone has done an excellent job. No overplaying, no underplaying, no excessive rona-dhona, no majboor-lachaar praanis - just feel good!

Nagesh Kukunoor has proved it again - and has succeeded in keeping Subhas Ghai away from direction.

And you love the fact that the movie gets over in a little more than two hours without the elaborate song and dance sequences. Which reminds me - the SC (that's the shortie for the Supreme Court, you idiot!) has recently passed an order asking Ketan Mehta and team to stop the screening of Mangal Pandey cuz his (Mr. Mangal's) descendents feel bad about the fact that their dada-pardaada may have had a relationship with a prostitute! Bah!