Satyam boss 'invented' thousands of staff

Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju added 13,000 invented employees to the firm's payroll so he could siphon off their wages, Indian prosecutors have claimed. Raju allegedly funnelled the money off through family members and used it to fund more than 400 land deals. Satyam claimed to have 53,000 employees, but in reality this was …

[Jay Jaffa]

the beginning of the end for outsourcing in India?

Given that the World is in financial turmoil right now, with the US suffering in particular, the only I can see out of this for America is to start manufacturing and consuming it's own goods. Why do we see so many US & Canadian tech outfits on the ropes yet American Industry chooses Huawei over a Cisco or Nortel. This will not be allowed to continue - protection, as a national level, is going to start taking shape soon and the US will start eating its own dogfood. Stories like Satyam simply act as a catalyst to this happening.

[Scott Broukell]

One or two, or 13,000

"Satyam's emergency board is meeting again on Friday - it has appointed two firms of accountants to try and sort out their books."

Or, is that ONE firm of accountants, which has invented a second company in order to double it's own profits!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only assume

The 13,000 imaginary staff were the most productive

[Robert Armstrong]

This is nothing more than a communication problem

Many believe in reincarnation and staff accordingly. There may indeed be only Satyam 40,000 livng and breathing employees rather then 53,000. But are we counting those who died and came back to the job once reincarnated? I'm thinking not....

I'm with Paris on this one because we both like sloppy seconds in life.

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly man!

He should have borrowed muni from himself, pretend to speculate on the market with it, incur great losses and pay it all to himself via another role and another account.

He'd probably got away with it for years?

[Adam White]

RE: the beginning of the end for outsourcing in India?

> Stories like Satyam simply act as a catalyst to this happening.

What, like how the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal acted as a catalyst for reform of the securitisation and creative auditing industries in America?

[Tom Austin]

It just...

...all gets better and better with these clowns, doesn't it.

Sigh.

I'm off to start measuring up some cardboard boxes and a nice dry-ish bridge to sleep under until this whole global corruption thing all blows over.

[TMS9900]

What a load of old cock...

In a company that size, how could he get away with it without the HR department raising eyebrows?

Can you imagine him making 13,000 direct calls to the HR manager?

"Ah good morning again!"

"Oh hello sir, how can I help you this morning?"

"Well, i've got another person i'd like you to hire please. I've interviewed him directly and given him the job. I'll email you the details."

"That's fine sir. Am I to assume that his salary will be paid into the same bank account as all the others?"

"Er, yes, yes that's fine."

"Very good sir"

So, either the HR director knew, in which case he/she is complicit and should also be implicated, or it's a load of rubbish. Which one is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doh!

Ah the great "Indian" outsource did they not twig when all the employees names were very similar or did they just think they'd employeed one big family.

Yes time to get the Outsource back on "home soil" be that the USA or the UK...

I hate having to call BT for anything I get someone reading from a script with an accent I find hard to understand and they can barely understand me I have to speak really slowly..

And no they aren't from Brum and neither am I....

[Anthony Mark]

@ Doh! AC

Having had dealings with telephone customer service from several companies recently, I can say with authority that, although Indian callcentre workers are difficult to understand sometimes and don't speak English, they are at least polite and courteous and TRY to be helpful - something that cannot be said for many *British* callcentre workers.

That said, I don't struggle too much with understanding foreign callcentre workers... Then again, I *AM* from Birmingham.

[Mike]

Outsourcing

I don't think it's the fact that it's a foreign call centre that is the cause for them always having crap customer service, it's probably more like the sort of company who doesn't give a crap outsources abroad

company that cares about customer service: let's get 100 people who speak english properly and know something about the subject and hire the 10 best

company that doesn't give a crap: well we need 10 staff, oh screw it let's just see who can answer the phone cheapest then we can tell our managers that we performed excellently and all calls were answered at a fraction of the cost of running our own call centre