The Signature Turnaround
Datahalli — the village of data
In 2012, JSW Group asked Karmesh to revive a struggling, philanthropically-funded, women-only rural BPO near Vijayanagar, Bellary. What began as a CSR project became one of India's largest rural outsourcing networks: a self-sustaining business that gave rural women a wage, a skill, and a reason to stay in their villages instead of migrating for work.
300 → 2,500
women employed, 2013 → peak scale
2 → 9
delivery centres, pan-India
₹74L → ₹4Cr
annual loss flipped to profit
"When we go for new hiring, the enthusiasm and the keenness of the rural girls to learn and work in this environment keeps us motivated and affirms that we are in the right business." — Karmesh Ghosh, YourStory, 2013
The model was recognised with the Global Sourcing Council Award (New York), NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours, and the Sandvik Gender Award — and Karmesh represented it on stage at the World BPO Forum in New York and Singapore Polytechnic.