Techies block
Saturday, September 04, 2004
TECHNICAL BLOCK
These days …I transact over the internet for my banking, I pay my telephone bills, gas bills, council tax ,electricity bills ,even my internet bills and my rent to my landlady with the click of the mouse.
When I was in Mumbai, my then Boss believed that you do not earn your salary's worth if you do not work on saturdays. So I had to go to work on all saturdays to make my presence felt and eventually get screwed up during my Saturday reviews with him. Although our weekly reviews were never captured on camera, they were very similar to what the show on discovery channel when the lion or leopard chases a herd of meek deers and pounces on one of them .
Once in about 6-8 weeks I would plead for a Saturday off to catch up with the bank to deposit a cheque , to pay the MTNL & MSEB bills , society maintenance fees or to wait for the gas cylinder to be delivered at home . He would grudgingly agree. After all it was one prey less to chase on a saturday afternoon for him .
I have always thought that such saturday breaks were necessary .
That was because technology has not made its inroads in India , that’s why we get to spend our saturdays catching up on domestic necessities like banking transactions and bill payments.
If I check up the mails that I have received from ICICI bank customer service in the last two years ( the ones that I have’nt trashed ), I have reason to believe that MTNL, Orange , BSES , mahanagar gas and many others did have facilities to pay over the net. Therefore the truth is to the contrary. All these facilities were available. But I never used them.
Having grown up as a old time banker’s daughter I was told by my father that all this new-age banking is a passing fad and that the business model of the brick and mortar banks will not be threatened. He reasoned out that the average Indian still prefers to chat up with the
pot-bellied, pan-chewing cashier while visiting the bank for depositing or withdrawing his hard earned Rupiya.
And the numbers that make up the average Indian is indeed quite a number.
And so I continued carrying cash, never used my debit card and never ever transacted on the internet for my banking transactions. I remember I was sent an internet banking id everytime I opened an account with my new age bank ( I had three bank accounts with them ) to transact over the net. But my internet banking account remained a virgin for many years … untouched and unused. I am told it expires within a few weeks of non –usage. How would I know …I never bothered to check whether it was alive or dead.
Could it be the mental block …
Are net transactions secure…
May be there are crooks somewhere who get cracking with your passwords.
What if the transaction is not credited ?
The MTNL guys will cut-off my telephone connection, the mahnagar gas will stop my gas connection and worst of all my mobile phone will get disconnected. Then I would have to call up those call centers …listen to awful music when kept waiting ... ah I would have to struggle with these govt. / semi govt. organizations to get my essential services restored.
I may need more saturdays off .
No … the struggle was certainly not worth it. Hard cash or even cheque was what makes a man ( woman too) believe that he or she has the real thing. Plastic card can get you money when you don’t really have any , but this ‘computer’ thing … not quite sure how it works.
I have obviously come a long way since then …literally too…about 17,000 miles says Air India.
What makes me believe that in a new country internet technology can be more trust worthy than it is back in India. Coming to think of it all this is architected and coded by our own guys slaving it out in some Offshore development center in India .
Blame it on computer illiteracy and low internet usage in India could be the general refrain … well I am not computer illiterate … I may not be a tech wizard but certainly would’nt say I am not tech savvy …. Although there are relative degrees of savviness if one really got to measure tech-savviness.
It is the comfort and security of the old fashioned, which is why we cling to the old and are afraid to embrace the new.
As a part of my job profile , I am responsible to drive compliance to an electronic - tool called SPEED ( System for performance evaluation and employee development) , Which means I need to get about 2000 employees and their bosses logon to the tool and set their professional goals for the year, review them after six months and evaluate their performance at the end of the project / year using this electronic tool.
Believe me I am struggling. No matter how many e-mails I send out, no matter how many facilitation sessions I conduct, no matter how many'SPEED made easy' – navigation guides I send out , people just don’t logon…
These are the same people who by the end of the year claim they have’nt been appraised properly. And these are certainly not the computer illiterate / ignorant or old fashioned junta.
All these are hardcore techies building similar tools and applications for the businesses of Fortune 500 companies .
So on a relative scale these are far more tech savvy that I.
And yet they refrain from using a tool which is meant for their own performance appraisal.
Now I know why …
When I came here I got initiated into net banking and paying my bills over the net, not because that was cheaper and hassle free. It was because there was NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE.
HSBC is open from 10 to 5 on Mondays to Fridays only . ( On comparison Abhyudaya bank – Nerul works half days on Sundays as well ).
The council office is open from 10 to 4 – weekdays only.
NTL – my internet service provider does not seem to have a physical building called an office in the area that I live in.
Neither do British Gas or see-board energy who are my providers for gas and electricity.
So when I asked around, my colleagues told me to set up direct debit over the net on my banking account.
I initially hesitated …’no I will pay by cheque’ was my refrain
Then I was puzzled … ‘what does it involve’ was my question.
Then I struggled….’ How and where’ do I do it … I asked and I came around …
But once I got over it I know now how hassle free it indeed is.
I am writing this blog just after I have sent a box of choclate cake and Rakhi to my brother after e-shopping on the indiatimes website.
My ICICI internet banking id has now been deflowered . Having discovered e-shopping, I am now e-honeymooning. I hope I don’t go overboard and ruthlessly rape my internet bank account.
And to think of it all throughout, I never really bothered to use my Bank’s services for anything other than withdrawing money from the ATM !!!
Technology does not arrive .
It gets enforced.
It gets enforced by discouraging and depriving all other modes of transactions.
Remember when Maruti was lauched in the 70’s.
It’s only competitor was ambassador. Die-hard ambassador loyalists scoffed at the ‘Plastic’ car and wondered if it would survive on Indian roads. Very soon , the good old ambassador started getting bad press and suffered all kinds of insults and injuries. All this was engineered only so that people switch on to Maruti which was cheaper and available without being wait listed.
Bride-Grooms could now demand and dream of getting a Real Sleek Maruti car for their dowry on the day of marriage and not a waiting list challan for a bajaj chetak or an huge ambassador from their Father-in law.
Another amazing example was In the late nineties. Suddenly all physical shares vanished in just a span of two –three years and got substituted by DEMAT.
I traded in shares in the physical era and was one of those who stubbornly stuck to my physical shares till I was driven by the companies of which I owned shares to open a DEMAT account. Else I could not trade them is what they said.
I grudgingly spent Rs.700 and opened a DEMAT account and coverted my wealth into electronic form. I never felt the same about shares again. That physical thing was what made me feel in possession of wealth. I was mortally scared if some erroneous transaction or a virus would wipe out records of my wealthy possessions and so I sold off my shares very soon. I never traded in shares again.
I am sure ICICI bank or any other bank for that matter must be struggling to get its customers to transact through net banking. Am sure not even 5% of its customers would subscribe to paying their bills over the net . No amount of discounts , freebees or promotional offers is going to change the mindset of the majority junta .( including the computer literate like me) .
This needs a governmental whip like the DEMAT revolution ... it needs belief and commitment to save physical space, infrastructure and paper and thus cut operational costs and run more efficient businesses.
But then in a country where unemployment looms large, politicians will shirk from supporting any such causes and taking steps of this kind.
I guess that is why we will continue to need Saturdays off ...
When I was in Mumbai, my then Boss believed that you do not earn your salary's worth if you do not work on saturdays. So I had to go to work on all saturdays to make my presence felt and eventually get screwed up during my Saturday reviews with him. Although our weekly reviews were never captured on camera, they were very similar to what the show on discovery channel when the lion or leopard chases a herd of meek deers and pounces on one of them .
Once in about 6-8 weeks I would plead for a Saturday off to catch up with the bank to deposit a cheque , to pay the MTNL & MSEB bills , society maintenance fees or to wait for the gas cylinder to be delivered at home . He would grudgingly agree. After all it was one prey less to chase on a saturday afternoon for him .
I have always thought that such saturday breaks were necessary .
That was because technology has not made its inroads in India , that’s why we get to spend our saturdays catching up on domestic necessities like banking transactions and bill payments.
If I check up the mails that I have received from ICICI bank customer service in the last two years ( the ones that I have’nt trashed ), I have reason to believe that MTNL, Orange , BSES , mahanagar gas and many others did have facilities to pay over the net. Therefore the truth is to the contrary. All these facilities were available. But I never used them.
Having grown up as a old time banker’s daughter I was told by my father that all this new-age banking is a passing fad and that the business model of the brick and mortar banks will not be threatened. He reasoned out that the average Indian still prefers to chat up with the
pot-bellied, pan-chewing cashier while visiting the bank for depositing or withdrawing his hard earned Rupiya.
And the numbers that make up the average Indian is indeed quite a number.
And so I continued carrying cash, never used my debit card and never ever transacted on the internet for my banking transactions. I remember I was sent an internet banking id everytime I opened an account with my new age bank ( I had three bank accounts with them ) to transact over the net. But my internet banking account remained a virgin for many years … untouched and unused. I am told it expires within a few weeks of non –usage. How would I know …I never bothered to check whether it was alive or dead.
Could it be the mental block …
Are net transactions secure…
May be there are crooks somewhere who get cracking with your passwords.
What if the transaction is not credited ?
The MTNL guys will cut-off my telephone connection, the mahnagar gas will stop my gas connection and worst of all my mobile phone will get disconnected. Then I would have to call up those call centers …listen to awful music when kept waiting ... ah I would have to struggle with these govt. / semi govt. organizations to get my essential services restored.
I may need more saturdays off .
No … the struggle was certainly not worth it. Hard cash or even cheque was what makes a man ( woman too) believe that he or she has the real thing. Plastic card can get you money when you don’t really have any , but this ‘computer’ thing … not quite sure how it works.
I have obviously come a long way since then …literally too…about 17,000 miles says Air India.
What makes me believe that in a new country internet technology can be more trust worthy than it is back in India. Coming to think of it all this is architected and coded by our own guys slaving it out in some Offshore development center in India .
Blame it on computer illiteracy and low internet usage in India could be the general refrain … well I am not computer illiterate … I may not be a tech wizard but certainly would’nt say I am not tech savvy …. Although there are relative degrees of savviness if one really got to measure tech-savviness.
It is the comfort and security of the old fashioned, which is why we cling to the old and are afraid to embrace the new.
As a part of my job profile , I am responsible to drive compliance to an electronic - tool called SPEED ( System for performance evaluation and employee development) , Which means I need to get about 2000 employees and their bosses logon to the tool and set their professional goals for the year, review them after six months and evaluate their performance at the end of the project / year using this electronic tool.
Believe me I am struggling. No matter how many e-mails I send out, no matter how many facilitation sessions I conduct, no matter how many'SPEED made easy' – navigation guides I send out , people just don’t logon…
These are the same people who by the end of the year claim they have’nt been appraised properly. And these are certainly not the computer illiterate / ignorant or old fashioned junta.
All these are hardcore techies building similar tools and applications for the businesses of Fortune 500 companies .
So on a relative scale these are far more tech savvy that I.
And yet they refrain from using a tool which is meant for their own performance appraisal.
Now I know why …
When I came here I got initiated into net banking and paying my bills over the net, not because that was cheaper and hassle free. It was because there was NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE.
HSBC is open from 10 to 5 on Mondays to Fridays only . ( On comparison Abhyudaya bank – Nerul works half days on Sundays as well ).
The council office is open from 10 to 4 – weekdays only.
NTL – my internet service provider does not seem to have a physical building called an office in the area that I live in.
Neither do British Gas or see-board energy who are my providers for gas and electricity.
So when I asked around, my colleagues told me to set up direct debit over the net on my banking account.
I initially hesitated …’no I will pay by cheque’ was my refrain
Then I was puzzled … ‘what does it involve’ was my question.
Then I struggled….’ How and where’ do I do it … I asked and I came around …
But once I got over it I know now how hassle free it indeed is.
I am writing this blog just after I have sent a box of choclate cake and Rakhi to my brother after e-shopping on the indiatimes website.
My ICICI internet banking id has now been deflowered . Having discovered e-shopping, I am now e-honeymooning. I hope I don’t go overboard and ruthlessly rape my internet bank account.
And to think of it all throughout, I never really bothered to use my Bank’s services for anything other than withdrawing money from the ATM !!!
Technology does not arrive .
It gets enforced.
It gets enforced by discouraging and depriving all other modes of transactions.
Remember when Maruti was lauched in the 70’s.
It’s only competitor was ambassador. Die-hard ambassador loyalists scoffed at the ‘Plastic’ car and wondered if it would survive on Indian roads. Very soon , the good old ambassador started getting bad press and suffered all kinds of insults and injuries. All this was engineered only so that people switch on to Maruti which was cheaper and available without being wait listed.
Bride-Grooms could now demand and dream of getting a Real Sleek Maruti car for their dowry on the day of marriage and not a waiting list challan for a bajaj chetak or an huge ambassador from their Father-in law.
Another amazing example was In the late nineties. Suddenly all physical shares vanished in just a span of two –three years and got substituted by DEMAT.
I traded in shares in the physical era and was one of those who stubbornly stuck to my physical shares till I was driven by the companies of which I owned shares to open a DEMAT account. Else I could not trade them is what they said.
I grudgingly spent Rs.700 and opened a DEMAT account and coverted my wealth into electronic form. I never felt the same about shares again. That physical thing was what made me feel in possession of wealth. I was mortally scared if some erroneous transaction or a virus would wipe out records of my wealthy possessions and so I sold off my shares very soon. I never traded in shares again.
I am sure ICICI bank or any other bank for that matter must be struggling to get its customers to transact through net banking. Am sure not even 5% of its customers would subscribe to paying their bills over the net . No amount of discounts , freebees or promotional offers is going to change the mindset of the majority junta .( including the computer literate like me) .
This needs a governmental whip like the DEMAT revolution ... it needs belief and commitment to save physical space, infrastructure and paper and thus cut operational costs and run more efficient businesses.
But then in a country where unemployment looms large, politicians will shirk from supporting any such causes and taking steps of this kind.
I guess that is why we will continue to need Saturdays off ...
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