How I negotiated with IBM Daksh
By Ria Sharma

Tech giant IBM had revenue of $24 Billion in the last quarter. Its offices in India are doing particularly well.  According to NASSCOM, IBM’s BPO arm Daksh has consistently been among the Top 10 BPO Exporters in the last few years.  In Nov, 2010, NASSCOM gave its Excellence in Gender Inclusivity Award for best BPO to IBM Daksh even as IBM India won it in the IT firm’s category.

IBM Daksh was awarded the Frost & Sullivan Contact Center Outsourcing Service Provider in the Asia Pacific region for four years running between 2006 – 2009.  IBM Daksh was formed after IBM took over Indian BPO Daksh in 2004.

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A Tipster sent in Webjassi’s publishing a first hand account in Aug, 2010 of a youngster’s first job at the Virgin Media Process at IBM Daksh in Gurgaon.  What is clear is that in some Processes, new job seekers should have fine tuned their negotiating skills to avoid being locked into basic terms and conditions.

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Our Neighbor’s daughter said “I can refer you to IBM Daksh where I am working these days” and I agreed. She joined IBM Daksh because she had been kicked out of her previous company for forging the Certificates she had.

Any way, getting back to the topic, so I agreed and went to IBM Daksh, Floor – 9, UCP Tower -B, Sector- 39, Gurgaon, Haryana. Carrying just Rs.68 in my pocket to go about 30 Kms. It took me about 2 hrs to reach there. There I met Abhishek Bhardwaj (HR – Referrals). Some more people were there for interviews. I started interacting with them and some of them became my friends. The interviews were still going on and it was almost 1500 hrs. Boy, was I hungry! But I did not let it show on my face. Most of them went for the lunch that day, but I did not.  The interviews went on, and it was about 1945 hrs, boy it was late for me to reach home.  Finally, all my interview rounds were done. They told me to reach 444, Udhyog Vihar-V, Gurgaon the next day.

Next day,  I went to 444 address I mentioned above (carrying about Rs.150 this time). The rounds went by and the day was also coming to end.

Finally, one by one, we were called to negotiate salaries. After the negotiation it was time to close the deal with the paper work. As per my old habit, I started reading the papers they gave me. The guy said that these are just formalities so you just need to sign them, but I insisted on reading them first. As I started to read them,  I discovered that the were making me sign a 1 year contract. In short. Company will keep me on year to year contract basis, my salary can not exceed more than Rs. 14000, I cannot get promoted, and other things binding me to be just be a piece of  working meat. The moment I realized it I refused to sign it. They asked why? I answered well I am not going to let myself be a slave to the company. Finally, the approval came to hire me as a regular employee. Papers were signed to close the deal and the day ended, and I started to find my way home again. But this time it was easy.
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