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This article provides information about the impact of BPO sectors on Indian economy !
In a more and more globalised world, information and communication technologies became the backbone of the business world and there was a rapid growth of the information technology enabled services (ITES) around the globe.
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This sector became a major part of the IT industry. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) forms an important part of the ITES industry. Outsourcing is required in different areas like Finance, Health, Accounting, Human Resources of companies, etc. “Outsourcing” is the process through which one company hands over part of its work to another company, making it responsible for the design and implementation of the business process under strict guidelines regarding requirements and specifications from the outsourcing company.
Thus BPO takes a set of activities and takes on the responsibility of reengineering the entire way the operation is done. This process is beneficial to both the outsourcing company and the service provider, as it enables the outsourcer to reduce costs and increase quality in non-core areas of business and utilise their expertise and competencies to the maximum.
The BPO service includes:
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i. Customer Service Interaction including Call Centres.
ii. Back Office operations/Banking/Revenue/ Accounting/Data Conversion/ HR etc. Verticals such as banks and aviation require large-scale data processing and data based decision-making capabilities. Raw data and or paper documents are sent to remote locations (IT-enabled destination) where data entry and necessary reconciliation is carried out.
iii. Transcription Services – Medical transcriptions involve the transcribing of medical records from audio format or dictated by doctors or other healthcare professionals into either a hard copy or electronic format.
iv. Content Development/Animation etc.
v. Data Research, Market Survey, Consultancy, Management etc. BRQ Opportunities in India.
The BPO industry is built around the policy of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. In the contemporary period companies are increasingly outsourcing select business functions and related IT operations to expert partners. India’s abundant skilled manpower has made it a target destination for multinationals to back end their operations in India.
With the advantage of English speaking population, low cost manpower and quality service, many companies are increasingly outsourcing their operations to India. India ranks high in areas such as qualifications, capabilities, quality of work, linguistic capabilities and work ethics, and thus is ahead of competitors such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Philippines, Mexico, Ireland, Australia and Netherlands, among others. Indian companies have unique capabilities and systems to set measure and monitor quality targets.
In specific ITES categories, Indian centers have achieved higher productivity levels, for example, the number of transactions per hour for back office processing, than their Western counterparts. Also, India is able to offer service without break and reduction in turnaround times by leveraging time zone differences. India’s unique geographic positioning makes this possible.
The opening up of telecom sector in 1994 encouraged liberalised private participation in IT sector. This allowed the flourishing of BPO industry in India. Many state governments in India now offer incentives and infrastructure to set up IT enabled services. The new telecom policy of 1999 brought in further changes in telecom industry, which also ended the state monopoly, on international telephoning facilities.
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This in turn heralded the golden era for ITES and BPO industry and leading to a spectacular growth of inbound/outbound call centers and data processing centres in India. The ITES industry, of which BPO forms a very important part, is expected to be a $ 17 billion industry in India and generate over 1.1 million jobs by 2008. The sector has grown by 73% during the last fiscal and recorded revenues of Rs. 7,100 crore (NASSCOM).