NEW DELHI: In a major drug bust that exposes the vulnerability of new age technology to being exploited for criminal enterprise, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) raided a BPO in Noida on Monday and arrested two persons for smuggling drugs to the US. Large quantities of amphetamine class of stimulants were also seized.

The banned drugs were to be smuggled to US cities using an American courier service. NCB officials, who are still hunting for the CEO of the call centre, recovered pre-labelled packets of the courier company from the BPO premises, raising questions over the courier firm’s role in the racket.

Police said US-based agents, chatrooms and internet pharmacies were used by the syndicate to fish for customers and the drugs were procured from illicit channels in India in collusion with some pharmaceutical companies and drug enforcement authorities. Source: TOI

Australian organisations are cautious about the considerable compliance risks related to business process outsourcing (BPO), including privacy and data protection, intellectual property rights, and executive accountability, according to a study by IDC. This is the case even though Australian organisations believe BPO can be used as a vehicle to cut back-office costs and in many cases, improve a process. The IDC report is titled Australia Customer Priorities for Business Process Outsourcing Services.

“BPO pilots will drive more new deals in the Australian region and become an important inroad for a BPO go-to-market strategy, as clients are more receptive to pilots before signing long-term, full-scale BPO contracts. This will happen primarily in areas that are considered ripe for outsourcing, such as benefits administration or areas within human capital management,” said Aprajita Sharma, research manager for outsourcing and BPO at IDC.  more

MAKATI CITY, Philippines — Outsourced customer support service firm Sitel remained optimistic that business will still pour in from the United States amid the economic slowdown, an executive told reporters.

“The slowdown is an opportunity for us to tap the off-shoring business,” said Sitel Philippines Corp. president Dan Reyes, in the sidelines of the International ICT Awards Philippines 2008, where Sitel Philippines Corp. was named “BPO Company of the Year.”

Operating 23 sites in the US and six offshore sites in the country, Reyes said the Philippines remained a destination for offshore outsourcing services for US companies because it offers an “economic advantage” over other markets.

“Companies in the US realized that the Philippines can provide quality service and not just cost arbitrage,” he said.     Read more

Pune, March 12 The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) on Wednesday announced the setting up of regional best practices committees to strengthen workplace-related policies and standards with a focus on security for employees in the business process outsourcing (BPO) segment.

The Nasscom-Pune Chapter has put together an action plan to ensure a secure environment for employees joining the industry.

Mr Ganesh Natarajan, Nasscom Vice-Chairman, told presspersons that the BPO - Best Practices Committee was formed to share unique practices first in the area of security and safety of employees.

“The committee will have a mandate to discuss other pertinent issues faced by the industry as well. The first step has been taken to create a common code of conduct that has currently been agreed upon by WNS, Wipro, Zensar, IBM Daksh and SerWizSol. There are 35 companies in the Nasscom list of BPO companies and soon we will have a consensus from all of them; 20 of them were present at the meeting today and have agreed in principle to be part of this common minimum programme,” he said.

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MANILA, Philippines — ePLDT, the IT services unit of the PLDT Group, reported P10.1 billion in total revenues for 2007, driven by its business process outsourcing (BPO) businesses.

ePLDT’s yearend revenues rose by nearly 60 percent from the previous year, according to the PLDT Group’s 2007 financial report.

Under ePLDT are Ventus, PLDT’s call center brand, and SPi, previously an independent company acquired by PLDT in 2006. SPi provides back-office service adding into the parent firm’s BPO portfolio.

Consolidated call center revenues grew 24 percent to P3.3 billion resulting from increased utilization of capacity, according to ePLDT. Ventus at present operates nine facilities with a total of 6,400 seats.

SPi, which has operations overseas including the US, India and Vietnam, generated total revenues of P5.3 billion last year.

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NEW DELHI: Faced with rising real estate costs, crumbling infrastructure and intense competition for skilled labour in major centres, BPO firms are looking at smaller cities as sites for new operations. This phenomenon has the potential to substantially reconfigure India’s economic landscape. Let us discuss this as below.

In part, this trend is the price of success, as the BPO industry is growing strongly to $8.4 billion worth exports in FY 2006-07, up 35% from the previous year. Growing price competition from countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America, appreciating Rupee value and dominance of big software sector over infrastructure – land and labour, have forced BPO firms to look at alternatives. By this process, so-called tier I cities of Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Chennai are beginning to lose investment to new locations.

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Democratic US Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has joined party rival Barak Obama in promising an end to tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, playing to the gallery on the hot-button issue of outsourcing as she tries to resuscitate her White House bid.

“. . . we are going to rid the tax code of these loopholes and giveaways. We’re going to stop giving a penny of your money to anybody who ships a job out of Texas, Ohio or anywhere else to another country,” Hillary said during a debate with Obama at University of Texas in Austin.

Hillary, who had in the past refused to join the anti-outsourcing bandwagon, has been perceived as a fence-sitter on the issue till now.

Continuing to play the anti-outsourcing card, Democrat presidential front-runner Barack Obama on Wednesday said while America cannot “shy away” from globalisation, it would have to take measures to ensure that jobs are not shipped overseas.”We have to stop providing tax breaks for companies that are shipping jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that are investing here in the United States of America,” Obama said in during a debate with rival Senator Hillary Clinton in Cleaveland, Ohio.

“Sri Lanka lost many opportunities for employment in BPO companies which did not come here due to lack of English educated young people. India gained in BPO employment and IT sector employment because there were  sufficient English educated people within their country”, said Deputy Chairman/Managing Director of Associated Motorways  Tilak De Zoysa Mr. De Zoysa who is also member of the Monetary Board of Sri Lanka was addressing a ceremony to award scholarships to children of company employees who passed government grade 5 scholarship examination.

A Rs.1500/= per month scholarship from year 1 up to university entrance together with Rs 700,000/= insurance policy was also awarded to Ms V P Udari Niwansala Pathirana of Rambukpitiya, Nawalapitiya. Miss Pathirana’s father died in a road accident on duty and she entered the year 1 class this year. Ms Dammika Priyangani Manike, the mother of Miss Pathirana received the award and the insurance policy from Deshabandu Tilak De Zoysa. The other students who received grade 5 scholarships at the ceremony were  as follows.  S A Naween Dilanka-Meegoda Maha Vidyalaya, L D Tharika Dilani-Devi Balika Vidyalaya, K R P Jayamali-Kegalle Balika Maha Vidyalaya, H Chethani Chandraratne-Pesbitirian Vidyalaya, Chamara J Wijetunga-President Vidyalaya, P S Haridi Tissera-Sri Sumangala Maha Vidyalaya, J C Kosila Fernando-Pushpadana Balika Maha Vidyalaya, G Lakmini Karannagoda-Thakshilava, Horana, V G M Teekshana-Sri Dharmaloka Maha Vidyalaya, M P Abeykoon-Shantha Paulu Balika Maha Vidyalaya, U P R Lahiruni-Lakshapana Maha Vidyalaya, H A H Pasindu-Bandaranayake Maha Vidyalaya, Vinura L Perera-D S Senanayake Maha Vidyalaya, K H Liyanage-Ashoka Vidyalaya, K V Saminda Kumara-President Vidyalaya.

On this occasion Mr De Zoysa also awarded long service award to 13 employees also completed up to 30 services in the company.

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