Is there a career path in the BPO industry?

Popular belief is that there are numerous job opportunities but fewer career opportunities in the BPO sector, but I feel that the Indian BPO industry currently has boundless career opportunities. This is evident from the fact that over the years the scope of services has grown from providing just voice-based marketing and customer relationship management services to transaction processing in finance and accounting, human resources, learning and procurement, legal transcription, animation and multimedia, content creation, as well as industry-specific services focusing on the insurance, healthcare, pharmaceutical and utility industries.

For example, companies in the life science industry are quite familiar to outsourcing; they outsource some of their critical processes like drug discovery, clinical trials, product manufacture, and data management. Thus the mainstream outsourcing service providers require specialist knowledge and skill sets to perform traditional life science functions such as clinical data management and pharmacovigilance (the monitoring of drug safety). India is a popular offshore location for outsourcing these sensitive functions, due largely to cost benefits and the availability of an appropriately skilled talent pool.

Sourced from The Hindu

How are parents viewing their wards’ choice of BPO jobs?

With youngsters wishing to join a BPO because they genuinely see it as a long-term career option, parents are also becoming more supportive towards this avenue. There is an increasing realisation that BPOs are just not about call centres, but about providing the right opportunities and building skills and global exposure. In a nutshell, employees in the BPO industry now get a challenging career with tremendous growth opportunities, hands-on experience of understanding different geographies, customs and cultures early in life. This experience of understanding and appreciating diversity is very valuable for their professional growth.

Outsourcing's Next Hot Spots, Who's next after India?

Companies will soon see outsourcing as a game of dice – hedging their bets and spreading outsourcing deals across the world, a report by the London School of Economics (LSE) has predicted.

Report co-author professor Leslie Willcocks said today the global growth in IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) in various new countries across the globe will allow businesses to gamble on many different offshoring deals.

"At one level it is a craps game, you spread your bets and you take your chances," he said.

"One country may be highly risky but you are willing to go ahead with the deal because you know that you can transfer it out if something goes wrong.

"Offshoring today is a transitionary phase in a much larger movement towards a global division of labour."

The LSE's Beyond Bric report looked at 14 countries outside the traditional IT and BPO hubs of Brazil, Russia, India and China (Bric). Bric countries currently dominate the outsourcing market – accounting for $45bn of its $55bn annual global value.

The report examined fledgling IT and BPO outsourcing industries in Central and Eastern Europe; the Middle East and Africa; Asia and the Americas.

Willcocks said India's struggles with high levels of staff turnover, rising costs and overburdened infrastructure is making emerging competitors more attractive.

"India will continue to dominate for the next 20 years but it has run into some challenges.

"Meanwhile, China is seen as having difficulty in languages and problems with intellectual property and Russia can't seem to get its act together.

"If the non-Bric countries can take advantage of these countries' challenges then they will be able to work that to their advantage. They should look to learn from India's mistakes of not developing infrastructure and skills base fast enough to keep up with that growth."

The predicted growth in the global ITO and BPO markets – which Willcocks described as "recession proof" – with outsourcing revenue set to grow between six and nine per cent each year.

The need for more offshore deals will be compounded by a desire for nearshoring along with widespread skills shortages among Western countries. The UK is predicted to have a shortfall of more than 14,000 IT specialists by 2010 and the US a shortage of 15 million by 2025, Willcocks said.

Topping the report's list of the outsourcing hotspots in many areas was Egypt. The country is a good fit for offshore IT outsourcing, BPO and call centre deals because of its low costs, its ability to scale up its offerings and the 31,000 science, tech and engineering and 20,000 English speaking graduates it produces each year.

The report, which was commissioned by the Egypt's Information Technology Industry Development Agency, says that Egypt needs to work on improving its management skills and transportation systems, changing perceptions of risk in the US and on attracting more high value work from Western clients.

Provided by silicon.com—Driving Business Through Technology - source via : businessweek

Genpact named ‘Best Performing BPO Provider’ & ‘Best Performing Finance & Accounting Outsourcing Firm’ in the 2009 Global Services 100 Survey

NEW YORK — Genpact (NYSE:G), a leader in the globalization of services and technology and a pioneer in managing business processes for companies around the world, today announced that it has been ranked as the Best Performing BPO Provider & Best Performing FAO Provider in the 2009 Global Services 100 listing. The awards were presented at the 2009 Global Services Conference on February 26, 2009 in New York City.

Genpact has been a consistent performer in the Global Services 100 Survey, having been named the winner of the Best Performing BPO category for the last three years – 2007, 2008, and 2009. For the first time this year, Genpact has also been named number one in the Finance & Accounting Outsourcing (FAO) category. Genpact is the only company to have won in two categories this year.

“We are proud to have retained our position as the Best Performing BPO Provider, and are delighted to have also been named the ‘Best Performing FAO’ firm this year. Our process expertise in delivering end-to-end services across a breadth of industries and operational excellence driven by our Six Sigma, Lean and Re-engineering capabilities have allowed us to stand out in this tough environment”, said Mr. Pramod Bhasin, President & CEO of Genpact. “We thank Global Services, neoIT, our customers and employees for this important recognition”, added Mr. Bhasin.

Obama Shocks India: No Tax Break For Firms Offshoring Jobs

US President Barack Obama, in his first address to a joint session of US Congress, has said that his Government will not give tax breaks to US companies that ship jobs overseas.

Thursday, February 26, 2009: ASSOCHAM president Sajjan Jindal has expressed serious concern over the Obama administration decision to deny tax benefits to US companies that outsource their jobs, adding that it will prevent free flow of goods and services under WTO regime. In a statement, Jindal said that the beneficiary of outsourcing jobs has not only been the receiving country but more so the country which has outsource their jobs in the past and the trend will remain so even in future. Estimates reveal that a US$ job outsourced fetched the outsource country more than 10 times of economic benefits and therefore discourage outsourcing by denying tax benefits can prove disastrous, Jindal added.

Outsourcing your Logo Design

Why not outsource to a company that specializes in logo design? There are many companies that now focus their efforts solely on logo design. There are a variety of benefits to choosing this path:

• Cost Savings: Outsourcing your design will cost you a fraction of what it would hiring an independent designer or using in-house staff.
• Faster Turnaround Time: Logo design companies will make your project a priority and have a thorough understanding of the design process.
• Fresh Perspectives: Having someone look at your ideas and concepts from a fresh point of view is always a good idea in logo design.

CustomLogosDesign.com brings you into the logo design process. With Custom Logos Design your logo is created just for you with your input. It allows you to get the best logo for your business. With Custom Logos Design you get the benefit of voicing your opinion and then having the logo created by an experience logo design professional made to your specifications. It is definitely what you want when designing a logo, so that you are sure to get a logo design that best represents your company. more

CustomLogosDesign.com offers Affordable Logo design Services in India, Australia, United States / USA, UK, Canada etc.

BPO - Process Risks

Process risks are, by far, the most comprehensive set that needs to be managed properly for ensuring minimal operational problems. Each business process has its own set of metrics that are important to the buyer as well as the vendor of these services. The perspectives of the clients and vendors of BPO services regarding risks are interesting. To the BPO services buyer, overall high customer satisfaction is the goal of customer-facing processes. Other risks may be important, but are subservient to the customer satisfaction goals.

The BPO services vendor is interested in making sure that process risks covered by contractual obligations are addressed first and foremost. Since many contracts include provisions for incentives and penalties for meeting and not meeting certain metrics, they end up high on the agenda. However, many vendors go above and beyond these and keep track of other metrics that help them with internal agent performance evaluations. Other metrics that will help them make sure that the business process is executed properly could also be monitored, whether they need to disclose these to the customers or not. They know that if these metrics aren't met consistently, the entire contract may be in jeopardy sooner or later.

A broad classification of process risks is one of qualitative risks and quantitative risks. Qualitative risks may deal with customer satisfaction issues and are measured usually by the BPO client using customer satisfaction surveys, in case the processes are customer facing. In non-customer facing processes such as financial accounts finalization, qualitative risks may be linked to an assessment of how well the services were provided.

Quantitative risks broadly deal with efficiency and effectiveness risks. They can be dealt with appropriately through prudent and appropriate choice of metrics. Efficiency metrics usually deal with time-related aspects of a business process. Average handle time and average hold time are good examples of efficiency metrics that deal with telephone support. Efficiency metrics may also include such items as number of loan cases handled per hour or number of claims handled per hour.

BPO: To be strategic, consider these questions

Can we reasonably find areas that are acceptable for outsourcing? What areas of the business are good candidates for outsourcing? Can we get buy-in from the C-level executives? Can we get buy-in from the mid-level managers involved, including those in IT? Answers to those often-tough questions come from meetings and discussions that include all the business units involved.

Economic recession & BPO industry

Economic recession has hit the world with vengeance. But the industry which has thrived this adversity is the BPO industry. When costs of doing work in-house has increased in the companies abroad, they have started to outsource their business requirements, which in turn has become a blessing in disguise to us.

The global economic scenario goes haywire now-a-days. People frantically talk about economic recession with a ‘what-will-be-my-future’ sort of look in their anxiety-filled eyes.

Even Nasscom, the industry association, points out that the current fiscal crisis in the United States will adversely affect the Indian BPO/IT sectors as the clients from USA would be very vigilant in their unrestricted spending on outsourcing their projects.

The revenue generated by the BPO & KPO industry in India is estimated to Rs.1,160 crores and provides employment to almost 7-8 lakh people in the year 2007-08. The largest contributor to the Indian BPO-KPO export market in 2007 is USA with a lion’s share of around 61%.

Why An All-in-one Accounting Services Outsourcing Is Preferred

Not placing all your of eggs in the same basket may be a wise decision, but what is also true is that it does not apply to accounting services outsourcing. It is simply because unlike eggs, most of the accounting functions are interlinked and it would really create a confusing situation if different service providers are hired for each specific accounting process. Starting from basic bookkeeping and continuing to final accounts preparation, financial analysis and tax preparation, most of these accounting sub-processes fall in a linear functional path and it would be better if all of these are managed by a single accounting services outsourcing provider.

The list of all-in-one accounting services outsourcing providers may contain only a few names, but since such services are still readily available, businesses need not worry too much. In a way, it can actually work to their advantage because the less the number of providers, the less will be the effort businesses will have to make in order to select the right accounting services outsourcing provider. Finding the right accounting services outsourcing provider will further eliminate any worries that businesses might be having about placing all of their eggs in the same basket. Achieving desired results such as cost savings and efficiency and accuracy improvements will also become a lot easier then.

Scandal / Scam by India's Satyam founder Ramlinga Raju

Satyam founder Ramlinga Raju has been booked for:

* Criminal conspiracy, after he confessed to perpetrating a 7,000-crore financial fraud
* He also faces charges of cheating for presenting a false picture
* Forgery for doctoring accounts and showing inflated revenues
* Raju and his brother have been booked for criminal breach of trust, now that the future of nearly half-a-lakh employees are at stake
* He’s also been booked for misappropriation of funds - several financial documents and bank statements are missing
* All charges are non-bailable

read all about scandal / scam here

Latest business process outsourcing (BPO) building offers flexibility, efficiency

The completion of 1880 Eastwood Ave. this year signifies another excellent structure in Eastwood City Cyberpark.

This latest building from #1 business process outsourcing (BPO) office buildings developer Megaworld Corporation is guaranteed to offer the best location in Metro Manila when it comes to prestige, expenditure and overall client satisfaction. 1880 Eastwood Ave. is tailor-made to suit all kinds of BPO firms. It is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, has full back-up power, and the latest telecommunications services, guaranteeing consistent high-bandwidth and fiber optic cables.

The building has six elevators, and service facilities set up on both ends of the office floors. This means that all operations are conducted at the heart of the building, maximizing space and increasing efficiency. “We are offering the best real estate solutions for BPO companies,” Megaworld FVP for business development Jericho Go stated. 1880 Eastwood Ave.’s adaptable design can accommodate the shifting schedule specifications of various BPO clients.

BPOs have the option to lease the amount of space best suited to their needs and once they decide to expand, they have the option to lease adjacent spaces or floors as they see fit, creating wide and easy to manage spaces. Also, the building is adjacent to 1800 Eastwood Ave, and locators have the option to combine office space in both buildings.

Financial requirements are also taken into consideration. According to Go, “Megaworld allows for maximum flexibility in the negotiations of the terms of the lease that will allow BPO companies to remain competitive in the global marketplace.” Ultimately, the lease costs in Eastwood City over a span of 5-10 years will still offer significant savings, as opposed to lease costs in Makati or Ortigas given the same length of time.

Found in the center of a bustling and modern 24/7 community, the advantageous position of 1880 Eastwood Ave. offers modern amenities and entertainment along with a natural and relaxing environment.
For more information on 1880 Eastwood Ave., BPO firms may call 912-0708 or visit www.megaworldcorp.com.

Source : Philstar

Slowdown to benefit BPO industry in India

NEW DELHI: Indian industry will feel the real impact of the current meltdown in the US and other developed economies in the first quarter of 2009, with the business process industry likely to see job losses of up to a quarter of a million, said Samir Chopra, President, Business Process
Industry Association of India (BPIAI).

Addressing delegates at a session on 'Surviving US Recession- Developing & Transforming Policies', Chopra, however, saw a silver lining in the ongoing recession for the BPO sector, saying that it would compel more companies in the US and Europe to look at outsourcing as a way cut their costs and improve efficiencies.

South Africa: 2010 Opens BPO, Tourism Opportunities for Gauteng

Johannesburg – The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), infrastructure and tourism are some of the opportunities presented by the 2010 Fifa World CupTM.
“In terms of business opportunities brought about by the 2010 Fifa World Cup, South African entrepreneurs can invest in infrastructure, particularly the maintenance of newly built structures, tourism and the BPO industry,” said Gauteng MEC for Finance and Economic Affairs, Mandla Nkomfe.
“The tourism industry is basically our new gold, as it contributes more than the actual gold mining industry does to the country’s Gross Domestic Product [GDP],” highlighted the MEC.
Speaking at the biggest inter-business soccer exhibition in the world, Soccerex 2008 on Wednesday, Nkomfe indicated that Gauteng was also the home of the BPO industry or call centre industry in South Africa.
Over 70 percent of all call centres in the country is based in Gauteng, he said, adding that in recognition of the importance of this industry, both IBM and Virgin Mobile have located their call centres in Gauteng. more

Call centers and business process outsourcing providers are among industry sectors in India that are likely to cut more than 25% of their staffing

Call centers and business process outsourcing providers are among industry sectors in India that are likely to cut more than 25% of their staffing soon, according to a report by a trade body.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) said on Wednesday that companies in those sectors were faced with shrinking margins.

The prediction comes as the Diwali festival in India draws to a close. Companies postponed layoffs until the festival was over on humanitarian grounds, ASSOCHAM said.

Earlier this month, top Indian outsourcers like Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services reported slower revenue and profit growth in the quarter to Sept. 30. These companies get most of their revenue from the U.S. and Europe, with a large number of their customers in the troubled banking and financial services sectors. (Listen to a podcast asking whether outsourcers can survive the down economy.)

India's economy is also slowing down. The country's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, last week cut its estimate for the country's gross domestic product growth for the fiscal year ending next March 31 to a range of 7.5% to 8%, from an earlier forecast of 8%.

New hiring by India's IT and services outsourcing industry has slowed down, but companies are not yet considering large-scale cuts, according to analysts.

Demand for data entry work in india

There is Demands increasing for data entry work in india. Most companies provide a list of prerequisites on the basis of which they assign work at home. They provide training for an entire batch and then have the software installed in the at-home employees computer system.

The employers either pay on a monthly basis, or per job basis, depending on their company policy. They have do require the data entry personnel to stay connected with the main office server.

The advantage of this is that one can seek assignments for a couple of companies at a time so that monotony does not step in, and can work as many hours as one wishes, not going below the desired minimum working hours set by the company.

BPO forum

Visit www.mtb2b.com - a bpo forum addressing all issues related to bpo with news / updates and information for bpo industry.

Bpo’s Welcome Nurses For The Health Care Business

Indian Nurses have never had it so good. After being wooed by hospitals in the US and Gulf, now the Indian IT/ITes sector is opening their gates to these Florence Nightingales. Outsourcing firms in the healthcare and life sciences and insurance space have started recruiting nurses and para medics to do jobs that require these specializations. read more

ESO (Engineering Services Outsourcing)

ESO stands for Engineering Services Outsourcing.
Engineering Services Outsourcing (ESO) includes product design, research and development and other technical services across sectors like automotive, aerospace, hi-tech/telecom, utilities and construction/industrial machinery.
Spending on engineering services was $750 billion in 2004 and is projected to grow to $1.1 trillion globally by 2020, according to a recent Nasscom and Booz Allen Hamilton study - Globalisation Of Engineering Services - the next frontier for India.
ESO also stands for Educational Services Outsourcing. Education is a growing sector and the demand for Indian educators is on the rise. ESO market is estimated to be USD eight billion dollars and Indian teachers are currently offering services to countries like US, UK , Canada , and the Middle East. Though the main demand is from USA, newer markets of Netherlands and Europe too are fast opening up for Indian teachers.

EPO (Engineering Process Outsourcing)

EPO stands for Engineering Process Outsourcing. India's engineering process outsourcing (EPO) business would grow 10-fold by 2014 to touch USD 30 billion and make the country a major hub in this area. The global EPO market, on the other hand, will grow to around USD 110-USD 140 billion by 2015

The IT Examiner's quick guide to outsourcing

In recent years India has become an outsourcing Hub for the West, mainly because of lower costs and a good talent base available in the country.
The outsourcing services include customer care, BPO, medical transcription, telemarketing, market research , manufacturing, designing data management services, engineering services, financial services, creative services, web analytics services, healthcare services, ghost writing, digital image editing services, and software services.
So what exactly is outsourcing and why do companies do this, with India hogging the limelight? There are questions whether or not the economic slowdown will affect the outsourcing trend and even whether it will expand to other areas.
Outsourcing can be defined as a process in which a company delegates some of its in-house operations/processes to a third party. Thus, outsourcing is a contractual transaction through which one company buys services from another while keeping ownership and ultimate responsibility for the underlying processes. The clients inform their provider what they want and how they want the work performed. So the client can authorize the provider to operate as well as redesign basic processes in order to ensure even greater cost and efficiency benefits. Importance in outsourcing should be understood where the third party or partner company takes full responsibility of any part of operations undertaken.
When a company decides to concentrate on what it's best at, it decides to subcontract some of the process such as testing, manufacturing, development to a certain extent to a vendor company to reduce the overhead costs of the main company and make more efficient use of land, labour and resources for more important activities.
Source and more details

Top BPO jobs

For top bpo jobs and career oppotunities, other bpo resources, bpo indian and worldwide companies listing & directories, classified ads, bpo works check out www.bpo.biz now.

BPO opportunity seen in UK due to UK 'knowledge worker' shortage

MANILA, Philippines--The current shortage of "knowledge workers" in the United Kingdom is good news for the country's outsourcing push in Europe.
A recent report from The Work Foundation, a London-based research and consultancy firm, said that the UK will need to attract more highly skilled workers from overseas for its high technology and "'knowledge intensive" industries.
The report's author noted that numbers are "relatively low," with only 167,000 high skilled workers in the country.
Reached for comment, Stephanie Weber, European IT Services Center (EITSC) business development manager, said UK companies have been suffering from the skills shortage for some time now.
According to the report, Filipinos are the third largest group of highly-skilled migrant workers, with a population of around 10,000. Indian nationals are by far the largest group with more than 45,000 followed by about 25,000 workers from the United States.
Next to the Philippines is South Africa (8,000) and Australia (6,500).
Under the previous work permit regime in the UK, 24 percent of highly skilled migrants were ICT professionals, 13 per cent were service managers and almost 10 percent in the healthcare sector.