SUPPORT BUSINESS:INDIA IS at the forefront of the evolving market for outsourcing services, and a firmly established "destination of choice" for a growing spectrum of overseas businesses.
The business process outsourcing (BPO) market, which traditionally covered services such as director services, banking, credit card and insurance operations and consumer item sales, has in recent years expanded to include customer interaction and support, finance and accounting, human resource management and procurement and knowledge services largely from western English-speaking countries such as the US, Britain, Ireland and Australia.
Alongside basic legal and medical services and even newspaper editing, India is attracting a growing share of software support business.
The National Association of Software and Services Companies said the BPO industry was worth $26-29 billion (€19-21 billion)having grown annually at around 35 per cent since 2008. It predicted that the prevailing growth momentum would continue and aid India’s BPO industry to achieve export revenues of about $30 billion by 2012.
Most centres hire youngsters in their late teens or early 20s, paying a monthly wage of between Rs15,000-25,000 (€240-€400), several times the national average.
A large pool of English-speaking graduates – a legacy of British colonial administration until 1947 – assured a steady supply of BPO recruits, but in recent years there has been mounting concern over whether Indian companies would continue to find enough “high-calibre” staff to satisfy the demand for quality call centres, expected to increase exponentially by 2011-12.
Consequently, market analysts warned of an incremental shift away from India to other Asian centres such as China, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Astronomical prices of real estate across the country – significantly dearer than land prices in London, New York, Dublin or Hong Kong – was also making the cost of outsourcing operations in India expensive and could slow things down, analysts warned.
The rising value of the Indian rupee and inflation hovering at about 8-9 per cent was also adding to BPO operational costs.
Meanwhile, promotions for these employees were rapid.
Within two years many could double their earnings, and working in air-conditioned offices was an added perquisite in a country where such luxury is rare.
Over the past two years many had been steadily quitting because the work was repetitive and the schedule gruelling. “The burn-out rate is high,” a call centre manager in Delhi admitted. BPO workers catering to the US, UK and Ireland were given accent training to allow the average resident to understand them better.
Most BPO employees worked through the night – given time differences with the West – and ended up suffering sleep deprivation and related problems such as high blood pressure, disorientation and becoming overweight.