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BPOs plan to engage customer centric model
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 00:09 IST
Bangalore: Though recession compelled all the companies to incur losses at varying degrees, it was a lesson learnt by organizations across the globe that was dependent upon the conventional model till it realized them substantial profits. Now organizations across the world are focusing on long term objectives and the same thought has even struck the BPO industry. BPO companies are now in plans to advance from their usual role of providing back end services.
Companies are trying to partner with their clients and act as strategic advisors them. "Post recession, India continues to have centre stage in Information and Technology. At present our main aim should be to maintain this standard," says Sucharita Eashwar, Senior Director, Nasscom. Going by Gartner's prediction, the Indian domestic BPO market will grow upto $1.2 billion by 2011 and by 2013, it has been estimated that the ITeS industry will grow to $1.8 billion.
Companies dealing in the ITeS sector are gradually trying to move up in the value chain. In their next step they are looking forward to engage in handling whole range of superior technology, optimum resource utilization and other range of value services which would benefit their customers in terms of realizing more profit.
Companies are looking for a shift from business process outsourcing to outcome based outsourcing, where the companies partner with their clients and take responsibility for the end result. "We practice concepts like 'Enterprise Partnership' where we not only advice our clients about their business but also share their profits and losses," says Nimish Soni, Managing Director, Xchanging.
Some companies in the ITeS space have been approached by their clients to offer something more than managing backend services. The ITeS sector wants to switch to a customer centric model which will ensure long term growth for the companies but this shift will take some time to become a trend in the market. "The process of changing the model is not easy and cannot be changed overnight. In order to engage a customer centric model, we have to rehire and retrain employees to deal with the new model," says Sandip Sen, Chief Marketing Officer and President (America), Aegis.
The ITeS sector is facing certain hurdles to implement the plan of engaging a customer centric model. Undoubtedly, the momentum has picked up in the market but the customers are demanding services at a lower price, the attrition rate has again picked up and the existing employees expect more salary. At the global front, the value of Indian Rupee has also appreciated.
At this juncture, companies in ITeS space, have decided to implement their plans by expanding their operations by setting up rural BPOs. To cut down on the attrition rate and the expenses incurred through paying salaries to the employees, companies feel this to be the feasible way to deal with the current drawbacks in the industry.
At a point, when the ITeS industry is planning to shift to a new model of partnering with their clients, the credibility of rural BPOs was questioned to which Sucharita clarified by citing certain examples, where BPOs set up in tier III cities like Salem in Tamil Nadu offer e-learning courses to students studying in grade 7 and grade 8 in various schools of the U.S. Most of the companies who have tried establishing BPOs in tier II and tier III cities find 'rural BPOs' to be an interesting model to vouch upon.
According to Nasscom, the BPO industry will require nearly 10 million people in the next five years and the industry experts are quite optimistic that through rural BPOs they will be able to fulfill this requirement.