BANGALORE: The curtains came down on the fifth edition of Asia's largest IT event with large crowds braving the heavy downpour on the final day Friday to flock to the flavour of the year pavilion -- the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. And, keeping in tune with the global business sentiment and the India brand, the ones most happy were the Britishers, the Belgians and the Germans, to name a few from among the 17 countries which participated in the five-day event. "We are more than happy. This is the first time we participated in this event and it has paid off. We will announce the names of two IT companies to Frankfurt," Sibylle Herforth, executive director of Frankfurt economic development, told IANS. "This year was definitely better than last year in terms of business. It is too early to quantify business, but the signs are very clear," said Kelvin Green, second secretary in British Trade Office. "A number of British companies will do business with Indian companies," he added. One indicator of the response was the attendance at the InvestUK seminar, an annual feature timed with BangaloreIT.Com 2002. Last year, there were hardly 30-40 companies who participated in the seminar. This year, the number crossed 80. "It is also a pointer to the confidence that Indian companies are gaining in Europe and see Britain as the place to operate from," Green added. And, the Belgian mission, headed by Senator Paul Wille, appears to have struck deals with "at least three companies" on its very first visit. "The negotiations are in the final stages. But, the deals are definitely on. The visit of the mission has helped," says Jayant Nadiger, trade commissioner of Flanders, Federated state of Belgium. "True the buzz is missing this time. But, that is because the event has entered the mature phase now after all the drumming and brand building exercise," says S. Sadgopan, director, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore. "There is less of hype and more of business. If you are consistent year after year, the message goes out loud and clear. "But the challenge in the next couple of years is to ensure that the foreign delegations meet up with Indian IT marketing teams right here. This could perhaps cut down heavy marketing costs," Sadgopan added. The call centre companies at the BPO pavilion also brought hordes of young men and women as well as their parents asking numerous questions on the booming IT Enabled Services sector. "There were students who wanted to know if they could work in the call centres while studying," said Ravi Kiran, operations manager (training) of PeopleOne Consulting, a human resource consultant firm. "And, there were parents who wanted to know why their children should work only in the night shift or what is the security in the industry." Kiran was practically the teacher who lectured 10 batches of 15 "learners" each every day on the BPO industry, its requirements and how they could go about getting jobs in this sector. MeritTrac, the competence assessment company, also conducted one test every one hour for prospective candidates to test their capabilities for the BPO sector. "If we find somebody really good, we would definitely recommend them to our clients," says Madan Padaki, director of MeritTrac.