Two being together is always better than one, since the synergy created by two will give business more strength than just a single unit. If a software company has a BPO affiliate, it can help the affiliate with its customers, funds, managerial skills, infrastructure facilities, etc. Kartikeya P Bolar, in the paper, "Service Export Performance of Business Group Affiliated Firms and Individual Firms in the Indian IT Industry" has discussed how IT companies in combination with ITES operations or affiliates have out-performed those companies operating only in one vertical. The author has taken into consideration service export performance (service export intensity) of two groups of Indian IT Services industry, strength of linear relationship between service export intensity and age, size of firms and international diversification in the IT industry. He has also tried to understand the effects of the factors such as age, size and international diversification on the service export performance in both types of firms in the IT industry. The study concludes by identifying that size of the firm can be generally associated with the service export performance of the firms in an industry but may not have cause and effect relationship with the same in all cases.

Attrition is one of the major causes of low quality of customer service in knowledge-based industries. Employees play a vital role in sustaining the quality of service given to customers. Frequent turnover of the employees results in higher cost to the company to replace them. Replacing manpower with similar competencies is a difficult task. Ammu Anantharaja, in the paper, "Causes of Attrition in BPO Companies: Study of a Mid-Size Organization in India", has made a study about attrition rate, which is the burning issue for HR departments due to which organizations are facing fatal problems like losing the talents and knowledge, paying high cost related to training, recruitment, etc. Today, businesses are more dependent than ever before on their top performers to innovate and provide services that differentiate a company from its fierce competitors. In other words, corporates rely on their human assets to survive and thrive. The author has tried to find out the reasons for attrition and the major problems faced by employees in the organization, which lead to attrition. She concludes that the key organizational Human Resource (HR) issue being faced today by all the companies is attrition.

Today in corporate world, one of the major factors which affects the productivity of the employee is stress. At the individual level, managing stress is a difficult task. There are several reasons, which affect an individual's mental state, work-related stress is being the major culprit. Organization has to team up to fight against the stress in employees, which helps the organization and individual to improve the productivity at both levels. N Kathirvel, in the paper, "A Study on Stress Among Employees Working in BPOs with Special Reference to Coimbatore", tries to study the relationship between educational qualification, monthly income, marital status, etc., and stress. The author concludes that in today's competitive field, employees are facing a lot of stress and nearly half of the respondents were having problems working in the IT Enabled Service (ITES) sector. This can be avoided through counseling, recreational activities and relaxation techniques. Most of the respondents did not have any problem at all. This is a positive result obtained from the respondents. As ITES are considered as emerging field, the problems of the employees will definitely affect their profession and so conflicts in all aspects should be eliminated.

Contribution of services sector to the Indian GDP is higher than that of other sectors. Banking is one of the important services among them. Since liberalization brought in by the Union Government, the banking industry has seen revolutionary changes. Changes have forced banking industry transform itself to focus on customer service to differentiate itself from other industries to meet the changing global market environment. Anubhav Anand Mishra, in the paper, "A Study on Customer Satisfaction in Indian Retail Banking", highlights how service plays an important role in banking industry and the factors of service which are important from the customer's view point. The objectives of this study are to measure the level of satisfaction of retail banking customers and to identify the factors of customer satisfaction in retail banks. The study factors are: service provided by the bank, the image or personality of the bank, convenience provided to the customers, pricing policies of the bank and maintenance of relationship with the customers. This study concludes that banks have to identify the factors of customer satisfaction and future intentions towards customers.

-- K Rajanath
Consulting Editor