In less than a twelve-month period, BPO has seen some much needed maturity. The same time last year, India was full of call center activity—and true BPO was waiting in the wings.

The big players like TCS and Satyam have entered the field and have brought new dynamics to the market. Arup Gupta, CEO of TCS America says, “The tasks involved in a BPO business are different from those in IT services. Unless there is technology that can differentiate and bring efficiency in the task execution, an aspiring BPO company will not survive long.” Look at examples in the U.S. ADP, possibly the largest compensation processing company, can handle a 4-member company’s needs as easily as it handles a 400,000-strong company’s needs. How? Technology. The company has remained focused on one element of business processing, and has specialized in it so well, that the process is made available to any company of any size. This cover issue on BPO underlines the importance of this crucial element in what could be India’s next big boom—not that the IT boom is over yet.

While on the country, we decided to test the true interest in people to go back home. There have been talks in the air, and everyone we met spoke intently about “India.” We are hosting a career fair this month in Santa Clara and New Jersey. We have done career fairs before, but this is first time ever an event is about returning to India for career and opportunities, not because someone could not get his or her green card here or had some family situation to return to India. The response so far to these events has been heartening to see. Surprisingly, most of the people inquiring are not the newly-arrived H1 visa holders, but experienced green card holders and U.S. passport holders of Indian origin.

In my last holiday to the homeland, I was very impressed to meet startups who were discussing India as their target market. Perhaps the time for reverse brain drain has come?