BPO: The road ahead…

Although countries like Australia, China, Philippines and Ireland have emerged as the close competitors in the ITES/BPO sector, India is still the favored market for BPO companies. As for 2005, NASSCOM predicts that there would be a considerable expansion in the captive operations of global organizations and MNCs in the BPO sector. Another key development would be the rapid growth in offshore outsourcing, especially in the sectors of Automatic data management, Human Resources (HR), Finance and Accounting and Healthcare.

The rating agency ICRA reports that by 2006, India is expected to capture 56 per cent share of offshore business process outsourcing business, with the demand for BPO services increasing at an annual growth rate of 50 per cent during 2004-06. The size of the Indian BPO market is likely to be around $9-12 billion by 2006 and it will employ around 400,000 people.

While figures are a source of comfort for the BPO segment, there is much to be done to smooth the edges. We might have a multitude of issues to take care of, but at the end of it all India will be shining even brighter