In the post-industrial society, technology and subsequently knowledge have become the major drivers of change. They have been ushering in gradual but irreversible changes in human lives. This article is an exploration into the emerging transformation of the human society with specific reference to developing countries like India. It tries to map the emerging changes in the areas of skill and knowledge, the economic and sociological impacts and the external image of countries. It also looks at the emerging challenges that a country like India has to address to ensure development and growth on a sustainable basis.

Till about 1700, all regions of the world were, more or less, at par in terms of prosperity. In the agrarian era, there were not any significant differences in gross income or macroeconomic growth rates. From 1700, the industrial revolution began to make its impact on Europe and later on North America. These regions started growing at a faster rate because of the scientific and technological changes. Industrial revolution sounded the death knell of feudalism and ushered in a new social order. It also brought in prosperity of a higher order. Industrial revolution was characterized by mass production and the rest of the world became the market. In the decades that followed the capacities were scaled up to bring in more economies in production. Competitive forces demanded better scale economies. Jobs multiplied and abundance and affluence were ushered in.

In the 20th Century, after the World Wars, came in automation and the information technology heralding the beginning of a new revolution. Migration of labor started taking place within the realms of possibility in a world fractured by borders to absorb the jobs that were differentiated in terms of wage rates. In this era jobs that were repetitive and routine were automated; jobs that required lower order of skills and hence considered of low value were given to those who demanded lower wage rates.2, 3 Breaking down of barriers and globalization spurred this process. Internet technology, that became ubiquitous in the last quarter of the 20th Century, marked the death of distance and this ushered in a whole new range of possibilities. One of them is the linking of the low wage rate workers of the developing world with the production systems of the developed world to man the low value jobs without any spatial dislocation. This is the emergence of outsourcing; Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is a special segment of this phenomenon.

Global CEO Magazine, Knowledge Era, Post-industrial Society, Sociological Impacts, Industrial Revolution, Information Technology, Globalization, Business Process Outsourcing, BPO, Knowledge Process Outsourcing, KPO, Knowledge Economy, Economic Aspects, Global Standards, Legal Process Outsourcing, Design Process Outsourcing, Knowledge Sectors.