Mar 20, 2015 11:35 PM
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(Updated Mar 21, 2015 12:00 AM)
Who: APPCO( https://appcogroupindia.in) is a part of a multinational group of organizations calling themselves the Cobra Group(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cobra_Group). This is a Hongkong based organization that has spread their tentacles far and wide across the world by convincing legal organizations that they can be instrumental in acquiring new customers cheaply.
How: They were let into the Indian Environment during the 1991 financial crisis and earned their stripes acquiring customers for the telecommunication industry, graduating onto pizza chains, hoteliers, charities. They now serve a wide variety of customer acquisition industries where the common pattern is a high cost of new customer acquisition.
What: The modus operandi for their clients is always the same. Make customers pay for pieces of paper promising large value for money. Initially, the deals were good stuff. Now I'm not so sure. The methods employed are cold-calling, one to one and face to face meetings.
The Operation: This is one thing about them you should be aware of. None of the people who claim to be employed with APPCO are their employees. They are legally speaking independent contractors. It's their fig leaf and is meant to keep APPCO employment liabilities to a very minimum.
The way they operate is a 3 layered marketing organization. The first layer is labour, the second a supervisory cadre and the third a managerial one. Plausible deniability is built into the layers if scams and mis-selling come home to haunt them. This is an organization that brainwashes vulnerable young minds into thinking of themselves as doing something extraordinary with regards to their professional careers. They use their selling skills, their savings and their minds to keep them glued to the organization without regard to labour laws and legal compliances.
The strategy is to lure in freshers, the retirees, the unemployed and the marginally employable. Those for whom employment is an achievable reality are termed weak and expected to attrite fast.
The recruitment tactic is a mix of high pressure selling of dreams of career growth, a persistent immersion into pie in the sky dreams of striking it rich in 3 months as Managers.
This is termed'Opportunity.' Newbies are brainwashed with'Oppurtinity', the method of attaining it via Five steps, extreme peer enthusiasm and post this brainwash, taken on a cruel tour of direct selling.
The famed five step program is hammered into trainee minds 7 days a week, morning after morning.
Introduction(lies)
Short Story(more lies, but sizzling ones.)
Proposal(the scam)
Close(grab that cheque)
Rehash(Ask for more)
The cruelty lies in the lack of any dignity, renumeration and legal sanction provided by an employer to its employees for misdeeds; past, present and ongoing. I've personally seen new joinees get beaten up for no fault of theirs. Some, regrettably spending time in police custody, careers tarnished and blemished with police records.
Naturally, attrition is sky high for newbies because its a huge shock to the values and expectations of typical job seeker. A few hardened souls stick through the first 7 days a week guided'training program' and these form the core of what each supervisor hopes will become his stepping stone to the managerial cadre.
These recruits are now forced to attend the office daily to reserve their place for'Opportunity'. I've spent 2 years in that organization living a hand to mouth existence after one of my parents died. I was close to her and this had wrecked my mind. I just did not know it then.
On the flip side, APPCO gave me a lot of self esteem, confidence, persuasiveness, manipulative ability and extroversion. I even made some friends who I keep in touch. All of the above were things I was severely deficient in. It took away the earnings of a 2 year period during which I was also severly deficient in good judgement and unaware of the characteristics of stable employment.
Please know that this has somehow, perversely allowed me to function quite well in this topsy turvy world. You may be surprised to know, how working with APPCO has changed me for the better. I only wish I had not wasted so much time doing so.
I know APPCO to be leeches of the employment world and would personally request readers of this opinion piece to stay away. There is nothing in this for you. You don't have my past deficiencies. If you do, work for a professional organization.
Please don't ask if this organization is legal, ethical, moral. I don't know and I make no judgements, I never have and that used to be my cross to bear. Let it not be yours.
Sincerely,
Paras Parmar.
