Smarten up talent pool in BPO sector

Despite churning out graduates and engineers by dozens every year, the Indian BPO industry is fretting over the lack of right talent pool and quality manpower. The main problem lies in the disparity in learning of the fresh graduates at their colleges and engineering institutions and the actual skill sets required to work in the ITeS BPO industry. However the companies in the Business process outsourcing sector have taken the lead in ensuring that requisite remedial actions are undertaken well in time to avoid any form of talent crisis.

Experts from the outsourcing sector suggest that it has become necessary to enhance the Indian talent pool to maximize the industry's potential and enable the sector to further catalyst the growth rate of the industry. The educational institutions need to train the young graduates on some of the key skills needed to join the ITeS BPO industry. Only then can the fresh graduates be ready to work in the industry from day one, they opine. And the responsibility of training the manpower to be fit for joining the team currently lies on the shoulders of the BPO companies. It has been suggested that fresher’s need to be trained at least two months before they can be taken in to a project. This in turn increases the cost of employment and total turnaround time for the companies and the industry as a whole.

Scope of BPO among job seekers

BPO refers to outsourcing in all the major fields of business and it has become one of the fastest growing industries in the past scenario. Various organizations have set up call centers wherein outsourcing of business process is done throughout cities as well as suburbs in India. There are call centers for customer care services of every other organization, right from telecommunications companies to banks.

A career in the outsourcing field has become a hit among the youngsters of India, thanks to the attractive five figure salaries and incentives! Usually youngsters of the age between 18 and 30 are seen to be indulged in the BPO jobs. According to surveys, more than one million people in India are working in the BPO industry, which is expected to increase to 2.5 to 3 million in the coming years. Factors which have led to the current boom are convenient transport facilities, attractive lifestyle, flexibility in work timings and whopping salary package. 

Since the clients expect top notch outcome, training in the BPO sector have become an essential thing. Hence many institutes have started imparting training to develop special skills required for the job, such as proficiency in spoken English, speech, accent and voice modulation, negotiation with clients, marketing skills and communication skills, through short-term diploma or certificate courses. After completing their graduation, job seekers can join any BPO as specialists in Transactional BPO, Comprehensive BPO, and Niche BPO etc. Ample job opportunities are available in customer support services, telemarketing services, technical support services, employee IT help-desk services, insurance services, data entry services, data conversion services and online marketing, in this field.

It’s time for vertical shift in BPO

In order to cater to the changing demands of the outsourcing industry many large BPO firms are widening their vertical or sectoral expertise. With clients now more open to outsourcing sector specific mid- to front-end functions that require deeper domain knowledge, BPOs are enhancing their expertise in such functions. These include areas like mortgage processing, core banking, supply chain and healthcare insurance. For clients, this helps to contain costs and focus on their core business.

Earlier BPOs have been horizontal focused. They offered services like customer interaction and support, finance and accounting, and human resources that are applied across different industry verticals. With the change in the vertical, insurance clients are now outsourcing core processes in underwriting and banking clients want BPOs to analyze risks associated with loans and make decisions on loan disbursements. The BPO giants in India are now focusing on banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, and telecom, media and entertainment verticals. Plus the outsourcing sector is also scouting for acquisitions in different geographies. Some Eastern European countries are excellent for accounting, while the US is good for healthcare experts. BPOs are also appointing domain specialists to improve their verticalized offerings. For instance, banking sector executives are hired to work on actuarial (risk assessment) roles at BPOs.

BPO in India Survives Recession

The BPO sector in India has well survived the global economic meltdown. Over the last ten years, the Indian BPO industry has grown to achieve a scale of more than USD 12 billion in revenues. Presently, worth nearly USD 150 billion, the industry employs over 400,000 people. The BPO industry of India is expected to undergo many minute changes. The key challenge ahead of it now is to keep up with the competition being posed by new countries that are emerging as outsourcing hubs and at the same time remain cost competitive.

The veterans in the BPO industry affirm that the business opportunity is significantly large. Hence they are focusing on domain expertise and build really deep capabilities. They also have plans to bring IT, BPO, technology, infrastructure all completely integrated, bundles solutions is what the clients are looking for. The opportunity of the BPO industry is on a rise with the growth and opportunity in emerging economies expected to present over USD 300 billion worth of business opportunity. The future seems to be bright for BPOs. India offers capability that probably no other country in the world does. In India there is huge population that is highly educated. At the same time the industry is moving so far up the value chain that the price that has been charged for the services now is much greater than it was before.

Content Development Outsourcing Opens New Doors

There have been enough talks and debates on the advantages of outsourcing to India. Mostly companies dwell on the benfits like the time and money you can save, which could be spent more productively in building the business. Many kinds of jobs have been outsourced the last ones to join the race is content development. It is absoultely possible to confidently outsource a wide variety of content writing projects to India. India has a large number of graduates who speak English as a first language, who think in English and write fluently in English. 

India’s thriving media and entertainment industry, combined with the IT revolution, has created a large pool of highly skilled and proficient creative and technical writers, journalists, story story writers, script writers, copywriters, editors and proofreaders. Well-educated teachers in India have the experience and qualification to write textbooks in English on most subjects. India is by far the best choice for outsourcing English content development . No other country compares to the English speaking and writing capabilities found in India . Top notch kind of quality and reliability is available in India. However there are firms that can not produce the quality expected. It is always a good idea to test vendors and once a good one is discovered, be loyal and stay with them.

Significance of Infrastructure in BPO

The Indian BPO Industry has the potential to drive India's economic growth through the next few years. The strength of the BPO s in India lies in experience, language proficiency, entrepreneurial zeal, skilled workers, expertise in new technologies and a cost advantage. The services offered by the BPO companies are in HR, finance and accounting, transaction processing, content development, engineering, design, remote education, market research, data search, network consultancy, etc. Indian BPO industry is essentially still in the early stages of evolution. The Indian BPO market is in its early high growth phase and is growing at an astronomical pace.

The main attraction of BPO or business process outsourcing players came in primarily for low cost and high quality services; the second feature was the rapid ramping up of operations and a modern BPO infrastructure, which propelled India's economic growth to a new horizon. Improved infrastructure is another important factor which has helped India to achieve tremendous success in the field of IT/BPO. There has been tremendous growth and improvement in telecom, power and roads infrastructure in the last few years in India. Relevant telecom facilities are an important precondition for the success of the software and BPO industry.

Significance of training in BPO industry

Since the BPO industry is growing at a drastic phase, there is a need to maintain the standards. The outsourcing services sector exceeds expectation in many sectors. Owing to the high profile job, attractive pay scale and growth opportunity, most of the young minds in India have been shifting their focus towards BPO jobs. In order to deliver desired services to customer, who is 10,000 miles away, it is important to have good amount of business knowledge and required expertise.

The business process outsourcing industry is expected to generate more than a million jobs by 2015 and hence training is needed for ensuring the high quality performance. Moreover, there has been high attrition rate in this sector due to unsatisfied employees, monotonous work, unused talent, inadequate technical expertise etc. Also the uprising of high profile BPO jobs has triggered the need for better training. 

In order to retain the employees thereby reducing the attrition rate, most of the companies have given prior importance to training. Some of the problems faced by employees from the outsourcing sector are flexible shift timing and job stress. This in turn leads to de-motivation. Well designed training program with clear career path increases the job satisfaction among the young professionals and help them in becoming efficient and effective at the work place. So companies should handle such challenges of meeting training needs, although, the sector is taking a lot of initiatives in conducting training for new joiners. Most of the BPO s in India feature elaborate training infrastructure with computer based training sessions led by specially trained and qualified in-house trainers. The training session tries to identify the strength and weakness and emphasis more on the personality, problem solving skills and leadership skills of the employees.

BPO s coping with the recession

Business experts confirm that Business-process outsourcing is getting redefined and will expand rapidly over the next five to seven years outpacing growth in technology services. These days’ companies are looking to outsource a wide range of services including human resources and accounting. In order to meet this demand, outsourcing companies are rushing to build up their expertise. Several companies have taken the acquisition route while others are opting to develop these services internally, says one of the veterans. 

Talking about the recession, experts believe that the global economic meltdown largely depend on customer’s economic cycle. Some of the clients have been severely affected by the economy while there are hopes that they will recover very soon. Outsourcing volumes will increase gradually as customers come out of the downturn in the economic cycle. However, on the other hand, looking at the business in totality shows that the business has not shrunk, they opine. Companies continue to look forward in outsourcing services in industries like banking, financial services and insurance sectors. Also technology, telecom and manufacturing have their share in the bread as well. In addition, clients are interested in focusing on their very core businesses and they seek specialised providers. Most of the Indian BPO companies focus on existing sectors and later on expanding to adjacent areas.

Economic growth safe in BPO hands

Looking at the recent developments it can be confirmed that the Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO) service industry continued to provide sound support to the economy. Based on the surveys it has been found out that total revenues estimated at US$8.3 billion, higher by 30.6 percent than the US$6.3 billion receipts reported in 2008. While the growth rate recorded may have slowdown from those of previous years, it is still robust compared with that of other industries in the country.

In addition there has been a double digit growth rates in revenues in outsourcing sub sectors like contact centre, transcription, animation, software development and others. Contact centres accounts for half or 50.9 percent of the industry's receipts. At the same time the main driver of outsourcing services contribute 21.6 percentage points to the industry's growth, says the report. Simultaneously transcription and animation services also posted dynamic growth amid the expansion of transcription companies and the production of more local animation films. 

Further the survey pointed out that IT-BPO exports have increased by 45.9 percent to reach US$7.7 billion. Export earnings comprised 93.4 percent of total industry revenues, an increase from the previous year's 83.6 percent export-to-revenue ratio. Except for the animation sub-sector, all other sub-sectors recorded higher export-to-revenue ratios, with the highest at 96.1 percent for transcription.

BPO in a nutshell

In the context of cost effective recession, outsourcing is the wisest resolution and it has been predicted as much prominent in the area of fiscal management. One of the great benefits of BPO services is that it helps companies to pay attention to core areas.

It is to reallocate accountability and control costs that companies generally outsource ways. In this manner, the management is within a much better position to pay attention to core areas, and never keep itself engrossed in the areas. In addition, outsourcing likewise helps companies to prevent capital expenditures that are particularly essential in non-core areas that could need new systems or more gradation. Basically companies always want to invest their money and time into core areas. Hence the need for outsourcing back office work arises. The Business process outsourcing service providers offer quantifiable advantages through enhanced efficiencies, lower expense, reduced payroll and gain expenses, and less capital investments. Other BPO rewards include assurance of guidelines, skills and technologies. 

Generally BPO companies provides use of proprietary work-flow techniques, process reengineering skills, and revolutionary staffing and shipping models, in conjunction with world-class technology delivered by experts. Another advantage of BPO is decrease in costs. To put it in simple words, BPO is a process of giving the less significant yet crucial work to a third party to running an amount well.

What Indian BPO s Posses?

• Skilled, English-speaking manpower, which is available in excess

• Telecom and infrastructure facilities meeting the global standards

• Strong quality orientation among resources and their ability on measuring and monitoring quality targets

• The scope of offering 24x7 services based on the country's unique geographic location that allows for adjusting time zone differences

• Hands-on and positive policy environment which encourages ITES/BPO investments and simplifies rules and procedures

• An open tax structure, which places the ITES/BPO industry on par with IT services companies.

What are the scopes of BPO?

• Customer care has always been a strong basement of offshore outsourcing services and it will continue to do so in future

• With the entry of outsourcing possibilities into vale added domains like insurance claims processing, the financial services are expecting greater growth

• HR outsourcing services are already contributing its share on the BPO sector

• Administration services including back office administration are surely going to increase in the future

• Getting into creative field, content development outsourcing is something that will shine brightly in future

Some facts on back office outsourcing

For the assortment of advantages it offers, back office outsourcing has gained immense popularity over these years. Businesses outsource their back office jobs since they can save the money that they would have to spend for acquiring these tasks carried out in-house. Back office outsourcing companies in India enable business experts to concentrate on core organization activities by lessening the administrative responsibilities of business experts. To be precise outsourcing back office jobs costs much less and yields greater results. 

Leading health care facilities, insurance firms, educational institutions, government agencies, organization establishments, legal firms, banking sector, financial, accounting firms and other people take benefit of the outsourcing services. There are numerous well-recognized outsourcing companies offering outstanding back office services. The best thing with the back office outsourcing firms is that they deliver consistent and competent service. They are always equipped with innovative technologies and software. Also a team of professionals which includes information conversion professionals, accountants, auditors, editors, proofreaders, quality controllers, monetary analysts and others with profound understanding about distinct file formats, accounting, auditing rules and data conversion tools and methods compliment the work of BPO in India. They have the capability to competently manage even complex back office projects and deliver good results within the specified time limit.

Overview of outsourcing industry in India

The ITES sector in India has flourished over the past decade. Due to its low cost but qualified workforce, Indians’ fluency in the English language, governmental support and a stable legislative and economic framework, India has enjoyed its dominant position in the global BPO segment. What more, the 12 hour time zone difference with the primary originator of most BPO jobs, the United States, is an added bonus, as day and night shifts can be carried on as routine. Moreover enhanced competitiveness in the BPO services sector has been increased due to the governmental drive to offer subsidies and tax relief benefits to the ITES industry.

It has been estimated that more than one million people have been employed in the outsourcing companies sector and it has generated revenues beyond expectation. United States holds the most prominent clientele with United Kingdom closely following it. One of the notable features is that majority of the clients are typically engaged in either the IT, financial services or telecom industries.

Challenges faced by the offshore outsourcing industry are significant in the real estate and infrastructure costs. The worst fear being the skyrocketing of construction costs in the main cities. This escalating cost has been resulting in unsustainable going forward. Hence many BPO companies in India have been migrating to suburban cities and even rural areas. Yet another threat is the expanding outsourcing operations and cheaper services by countries like China, Mexico and Vietnam.

Future of Finance BPO Services Shines Brightly

India has the potential to reach a market size of $250 billion in the outsourcing industry, according to a study by global consulting and research firm Everest Group, titled “Role of Global Sourcing in Financial Services”. The report further suggest that India will play a key role in global Business Process Outsourcing in the financial services sector.

Over the years, India, Philippines and China have evolved as mature locations for financial services outsourcing, while Eastern Europe, Central America and South America are witnessing the fastest growth. The financial services BPO sector is a $16-18 billion market comprising nearly 40 per cent of the $40 billion global sourcing market. The BPO in India continues to play a key role in the offshore outsourcing space and offer attractive arbitrage opportunities compared to onshore locations in US, UK, and Europe. The availability of skilled individuals, process excellence, and improved service levels are the bait that Indian BPO companies posses.

Furthermore, the report hinted that challenges have had a very minimal impact on global outsourcing. The most notable ones being the constraints in the United States associated with the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) and data protection measures in the European Union. The study has analysed the global sourcing phenomena in detail on areas like capital markets, insurance outsourcing and also analysed labour savings and other factors offered by different on and offshore delivery locations.

Change is Inevitable and BPO industry is no Exception

The Outsourcing business in India still leads the global IT outsourcing market and its advantages over other regions are distinct. Rising from the periphery to emerge as a viable, high-potential opportunity for the country's IT-BPO services sector, the Indian domestic market has undergone a transformation over the past decade. 

According to the government statistics, India continues to dominate global outsourcing market with market size estimated to be worth about $52 billion. Banking and financial services contribute nearly 40 percent to India's outsourcing industry. Even though the offshore outsourcing industry has been facing bottlenecks like cut-throat competition, severe shortages of trained and skilled manpower, more investment needed in infrastructure, need of higher level of control, maintenance of higher quality standards, the BPO service sector has slowly gone past the hurricanes smoothly. 

However, experts suggest that India's outsourcing industry is on the cusp of a significant change, shifting to knowledge-intensive and value-added services that call for a new way of functioning. In the global outsourcing market labour or cost arbitrage has been the constant concerns. But when it comes to outsourcing business in India, need to scale rapidly, greater focus on core competencies, enhanced productivity, heightened competition and reduced time to market that is driving domestic demand.

There now seems to be shift in the services that are outsourced. Earlier the not-so-important and tedious back office works were outsourced while now the outsourced services are now the areas that require experts. What has triggered the companies to search for experts to offload functions beyond their know-how is essentially the growing competition and market needs. This is not only helping organizations save time and gain value for money but also helping them scale up by capitalizing on their proficiency, says reports. To be precise, the Offshore BPO industry is standing at an interesting focus-shift point. BPO service providers are now adding the knowledge component into the mix in an attempt to deliver greater value.