New Frontiers Help Indian BPO Industry Grow...

The progress and prosperity of Indian BPO sector is a combination of steady overseas projects, a thriving domestic outsourcing market, and a process of expansions in various Latin American countries. In this seemingly unending time of recession this combination looks like the best policy that can be thought of. Leading Indian BPO companies like Infosys, and TCS are trying to venture out of India in order to increase profitability and tackle recession.

The BPO export market in India is $ 11 billion. This is revealed by a survey done by Ernst and Young. This is the very market that has helped India to gain a leading position in the world BPO market. Currently the Indian BPO export market stands at $ 14.7 billion to be exact. This is also reflection of the increasing Compound Annual Growth Rate that is currently measured to be 37 percent.

Most of these off shoring services are provided to countries like North America, and the United Kingdom These countries provide India about 87 percent of its export assignments. It is estimated that the export market will amount to $ 16 to 19 billion by the year 2012.

But if we take a look at the domestic market then we will see that it has an even better growth rate. According to data available from 2008 the Indian domestic outsourcing market earns revenue worth $ 1.6 billion. This amount of revenue is more than 50 percent than what it used to be in 2003. It is also assumed that by the time the current fiscal ends the domestic market here will leap to $ 2 billion.

Many IT companies have now understood the potential of the domestic BPO market and that is why they are trying to pay due attention here as well. These companies include big names like Infosys, Wipro as well as some MNCs like IBM, Firstsource, Mphasis BPO, and Intelenet Global Services. It is expected that by 2012 this domestic industry will be worth $ 6 billion.

As far as establishing offices in other countries are concerned right now Brazil looks like the most potential market. It has an IT and telecom industry there is worth above $ 100 million. India’s TCS already has its offices there and another Indian BPO leader, Infosys, will open an office there within next few months.

So, it seems that despite recession Indian BPO will keep on to prosper thanks to these more promising markets.

Growing Domestic Market Encourages “Ruralshoring...

Considering the future growth prospect of the Indian domestic BPO market many companies are now trying to set their foot in the rural areas of India. They are investing millions of rupees in order to build infrastructure there. These companies are also trying to use the local language to reach the local and regional customer base.

That is why many of these companies are now seeking employees who know regional languages like Maithili, and Bhojpuri. These companies are making sure that people running the helpdesk in these villages can communicate with the local population in their own languages, because this will help the companies to gain a penetration in the deeper parts of these villages.

Right now the domestic BPO industry in India is worth $ 2 billion that is 40 percent more than what it was last year. This is even likely to increase to $ 6 billion by the time 2012 ends. Most of the revenues that are generated through these domestic BPO services have come through the finance and the banking industries. That is why banking companies like HDFC are ready to invest a lot of money in the villages of Tirupati.

There are BPO companies as well that are trying to establish there base in suburbs like Durgapur and Shimoga. These companies include Xchanging, and Hinduja Global Solutions.

Chemical manufacturers too are shifting their back office jobs in these rural areas. Tata Chemicals is one such company. Its back office jobs are done from villages in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Both of these are major Indian states.

HDFC is currently using the services of RuralShores Business Services, a BPO company situated in Bangalore. The banking giant also is a 24 percent shareholder in that BPO company. This whole BPO endeavor by these big companies has helped in the coining of a new term “ruralshoring”.

This current and popular trend is supposed to establish a link among 500 places. This will definitely increase the business of these companies as well as the reach of the Indian domestic BPO services.

This will definitely create job opportunities in these villages, which is something really positive considering the ongoing recession. The total cost of investment is supposed to be in the range of 4 to 5 million INR.

However, experts believe it will need a lot of planned execution to make this whole process a success. But most of them are sure that this new model has the potential to be successful.

India Implements New Methods, Improves Growth...

The year 2008 was not too bad for the global IT sector because it saw a growth of about 8.2 percent. This happened even after the onslaught of the economical meltdown. This helped the whole industry gain a good amount of profit. The profit reached to a good sum of about $ 806 billion, which was a definite increase over the earning of 2007. That year the global turnover was $ 745 billion.

In this global high India too managed a growth of about 12.9 percent. It is true that the suddenness of recession hit India really hard but it has worked out the ways to get out of that scenario and one of them is innovation. That is why many BPO companies want to see its managers to become more innovative.

That is why there have been several tests by various organizations to gauge the kind of innovative thought that various BPO workers and managers have. After all it is the manager who is supposed to lead the path and help the company get the desired result.

In fact mere cost saving is not enough. Right now companies believe that they need to do something special and find out innovative means to solve a problem or deliver a project. Without this combination, cost saving and innovation, no company can survive for long in the BPO market under the current economical circumstances.

So, right now all Indian companies are trying to focus on innovation. In the recent strategy summit organized by Nasscom almost all the major companies have agreed on the necessity of this innovativeness.

This is not all the Indian BPO industry experts say that all the companies need to utilize their resources and infrastructure to its ultimate level. And only then can they expect to get improved growth rate.

Apart from innovation BPO companies can strengthen their base in the domestic market even more. Going for cloud computing is another option to cut cost but preventing lay off. Already the industry has seen even less than one percent lay off of work force in the sector.

Infosys is currently making an attempt to venture into the rural areas and establish its offices there. On the other hand there are various Indian institutes and open universities that are providing curses related to BPO industry. This will help prepare students in the nitty-gritty of this business and will also save the company’s money that it spends in training new recruits.

And all these efforts have already paid off. India has secured a growth rate of 37 percent. This has helped it gain a revenue of $ 14.7 billion this year compared to $ 11 billion it managed to accumulate last year.

Thus Indian BPO saga continues to be a successful one despite the down turn.

Indian IT Sector Gets a Shot in the Arm...

Though the recession is yet to say good-bye Indian IT sector still continues to impress the world. It is a well-known fact now that India has faced the changing economical situation with enough determination and composure. Perhaps that is the reason that two of its major IT companies have found a place in the list of 500 top companies published by Financial Times.

The two companies that show the Indian might to the world are Infosys and TCS. The latter is the short form of Tata Consultancy Service. Both of these companies have proven their mettle in the fields of Business Process Outsourcing and they are also two of the topmost companies in India that rule the BPO sector.

While TCS ranks 483^rd, Infosys’ position is a lot better. It has been able to secure a ranking of 330. This comes at a time when these two Indian BPO giants are trying to establish their presence on Brazil among other nations. TCS already has about 1700 people in this Latin American nation.

This news also follows the Nasscom announcement that the IT sector is going to see a better business at the end of the Financial Year 2009-2010. Indian IT BPO companies exported about $ 28.4 billion to the US in the year 2008. Nasscom also predicted that the Indian BPO sector would earn revenue of about $ 47 billion in the year 2009.

This ranking once again proves India’s supremacy in the field of BPO service. Despite the entry of African countries like Ghana, South Africa, and Egypt Indian BPO is still going strong and is still leading the pack in the global perspective. Ghana leads the table regionally for being one of the better BPOs in Africa.

Thus Indian BPO companies have a lot to cheer about and look forward to.

Bing Promises to Become a Decision Engine...

Change is a part and parcel of the universe and the same is true about the cyber world. “Bing”, new search engine created by Microsoft, promises to bring that change by becoming your “decision engine”. Though this search engine is available to every net user from 1^st June, but according to the company sources it will take another two days to make it completely available to the general public. With this new introduction the company hopes to outperform the search engine leader Google.

With this new search engine the company has replaced Live Search. Microsoft would aim to match the “perceived satisfaction” of search engine with the real experience by helping the user get exactly what he was looking.

Rather than working like any other search engine bing promises to be different. The major difference would be in approach. Bing would list all the relevant results and reviews taken for various sites in the same page along with related results in the left hand column. The categorization is done based on various features of the product or the subject that you are searching about.

In case you are searching for “great white shark” apart from a listing of relevant websites you will also get a list of other links in the left hand side of the webpage that focus on topics like great white shark attacks, largest great white shark, sharks, great white shark UK, and great whiter shark attack pictures.

If it is hotels that you are looking for then again this “decision engine” will give a list of various variations. The main purpose behind this is to narrow down your search and make it as specific as possible. Thanks to all these specifications and sub-categorizations it is hoped that you will find what you are looking for pretty quickly.

While looking for a particular shop or hotel bing does not ignore the local sites at all but includes them in its search. This makes your search results more specific. The site also has a very attractive look. It is also quite user friendly.

Now, all this site has to do is to keep up the good work. Let us not forget that the cyber world is evolving every minute. In short once this site gets launched we would definitely hope to see some more advancements and where it goes here after. We are really lucky that we are born in an age where change comes everyday.

I doubt if all the seo companies will start creating seperate strategies to rank well in Bing.

[Sources: www.bing.com and

http://www.decisionengine.com]

Hosting Services-BPOs Find New Way to Cost Cutting...

Due to the ongoing recession there are many Indian BPO companies that are currently considering various ways of cutting their production cost. In this regard some of them have found hosting services to be quite cost efficient. These companies are now seeking the help of various telecom companies so they can outsource their communications infrastructure.

This step is supposed to help these BPOs to curtail investment in establishment cost. Thanks to this kind of outsourcing facilities they can now concentrate on the job leaving the rest of the infrastructure related issues to these telecom companies.

According to the practice these hosting service providers will take care of your total infrastructure ad its maintenance. All the BPO companies have to do is to tell the hosting companies the number of seats that they have to cover. Once the equipments are in place it would be business as usual for you.

This collaboration helps the BPO companies in another way. Now they do not need to la off people to cut cost. This helps the companies to preserve their work force. Some industry experts believe that in future this will help the companies do their business with minimum infrastructure. Only a few bare essentials like computers, and routers would do.

Once they have outsourced the whole process the BPO companies would not have to hire experts to look after the machines. This will save the companies about Rs 15 to 20 lakhs every year. A BPO company who has gone for hosting service can save up to Rs 40 lakhs.

This whole procedure of curtailing the cost is pretty unique and for once saves the jobs of those people who are already with the company for a long time. It is due to this innovative thinking that helps the Indian outsourcing industry to command a market price of $ 47 billion.

Security Management Outsourcing Brings New Players...

Security management outsourcing is one of the hottest topics these days. There are new countries that are emerging in this field. Most of these countries belong to Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. These countries have already replaced many developed countries like North America, and Western Europe. These providers are called Managed Security Service Providers or MSSP.

India, thanks to the financial investments made by the government here, is leading the table followed by China. Overseas companies find it quite cost effective and manageable to offshore their security related tasks. This helps companies to help their security managers concentrate on other important tasks. By outsourcing these jobs to the above-mentioned regions they make sure that the quality of the work is not compromised.

The number of these companies outsourcing their work is increasing year after year. Apart from private sectors there are many public sector companies who are also showing much interest in outsourcing their security management responsibilities.

There are also companies in India that also handle the security of the cash transaction system. This has become very important because many customers are now interested in taking cash rather than making the transactions through credit cards. The North American and Western European countries are witnessing a lesser growth rate.

These MSSPs provide 24×7 monitoring of the system. In 2007 Forrester conducted a survey that mentioned about 30 percent of small and medium businesses at that time were interested to offshore there security management responsibilities. Moreover, this year at least 52 percent companies have said that they want to go for outsourcing of security management process.

It is estimated by experts that this market will grow even further because of the current economical recession and the availability of trained and well skilled personnel. These people have all the necessary knowledge to handle the security of a company.