IT/ ITeS companies have been one of the booming sectors in the present business scenario.

In spite of this people have qualms in their mind about the workplace in these companies. Though IT sector work place is similar to others like banks, pharma etc. and in fact more casual, more friendly than the others, barring perhaps long working hours and carry forward of work to home- this misconception about IT workplace environment being inconducive and unfavorable on health is because it is stereotyped with ITeS workplaces. ITeS in India is synonymous with BPOs. The work culture and work environment here does seem incompatible with Indian culture where security is of paramount importance and this security- in terms of physical and mental well-being of both men and women working here- is absent. Though youth find themselves comfortable, the older age workforce find themselves out of sync in such an environment. Youth do not look at long term effects and concentrate only on the attractive packages of this sector. This project looks at some positive and negative aspects of IT/ ITeS workplace along with what is necessary in an ideal work environment. I personally feel that ITeS workplace should have a more humane outlook and should be in sync with the Indian culture.

IT refers to Information Technology. The hardcore technical jobs in the IT industry can broadly be classified as hardware jobs and software jobs. Non technical jobs include functional expert consultants, web designers, data entry professionals etc. IT sector is one of the most lucrative job sectors, which has been booming for the past few years. Though this sector had faced a lull in the past year because of the Satyam scam and recession in US, the industry wont give up without a fight. So all in all the sector is growing again- if not in leaps and bounds as before- then atleast at a steady and secure pace. What does ITeS stand for? What does it mean? ITeS stands for IT-enabled services. IT-enabled outsourcing can be defined as, Those outsourcing services that use information technology in the processing and delivery of the service. Services are typically delivered through a telecommunications or data network, or other electronic media.

However, there are critical differences between the two business of IT services and BPO. Some of them are as follows: IT services is project to project, whereas BPO is continuous. And that makes BPO more involving with the clients. While it has its own advantages, like stability of business, it also throws up some challenges. One is more subtle relationship management. In BPO, the companies have to deal with functional managers every day, not with IT professionals. The other challenge is business continuity. The business continuity planning has to be near-perfect in BPO, because some of the BPO work is every day, every hour. Different margin game: The margins are lower in process outsourcing than in IT services. A company must know where to balance the topline and bottomline. Else, the valuation could be severely affected. However, with IT services margins under pressure, the gap between the IT services margin and the BPO margin is closing. Growth is possible smoothly only in the English speaking worldthat is the US, the UK, and Australia/New Zealand. IT services are not so much market language dependent.