One of the Top five Banks HDFC Bank, the second biggest private sector lender, has set up the country’s first ever commercial scale rural BPO at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh employing youths from weaker sections in nearby villages.

A Rajan, Country Head, Operations, HDFC Bank said the BPO, set up by the Bank’s subsidiary, ADFC, commenced operations in July and started supporting several outsourced processing activities of the bank. It presently employs more than 500 staff with plans to ramp it up to over 1,500 by March 2009, making it one of the largest rural BPOs in the banking sector.

Giving the rationale behind setting up a rural BPO , he said, “the bank is pioneering an initiative which has the potential to revolutionise rural India by taking job opportunities closer to the rural doorsteps, through economically viable projects.”

He said the bank will be able to achieve it without compromising on customer service levels and economic viability of the project. Depending on the success of this initiative, there are plans to open similar rural BPOs in other states as well, he added.

Rajan also felt the idea holds huge potential and other banks, insurance companies, mutual funds also could consider financial outsourcing through rural BPOs creating jobs in thousands in the hinterland. The BPO is located at Tirupati which is a semi-urban area where the bank managed to get broadband connectivity from BSNL. Source

Tata Communications has launched a new service that enables BPO employees to work from home. A press release said that the service will enable ITeS companies to give their employees the option to work from home, while not compromising on security issues.

The Tata Communications Work From Home solution is offered as an overlay on its IP-VPN/MPLS network.

“BPO employees are expected to benefit in terms of reduced travel time and being able to maintain a better work-life balance. Employers would gain by way of lower real estate and administrative costs and availability of alternative talent pools, for instance home-makers, to meet their staff and growth plans,” said Sunil Joshi, president (Enterprise Business Unit) of Tata Communications. Source

Infosys BPO, the business process outsourcing subsidiary of Infosys Technologies has reorganised its procurement business to provide end-to-end solutions across the entire ‘source-to-pay’ cycle to broaden its service offerings and customer base.

The services under the new practice include e-procurement, supplier management, contract management, strategic sourcing and spend management.

Infosys BPO has also launched a Sourcing and Procurement Academy that would train the employees on the latest global practices and requirements to service clients under the new offerings. It has also launched an ‘on demand’ procure-to-pay business platform which is made available to clients at a variable but predictable price based on their procurement spend.  Source

Indian Nurses have never had it so good. After being wooed by hospitals in the US and Gulf, now the Indian IT/ITes sector is opening their gates to these Florence Nightingales. Outsourcing firms in the healthcare and life sciences and insurance space have started recruiting nurses and para medics to do jobs that require these specializations.

Although, a recent phenomenon, the trend started a few months back as BPO firms started providing end-to-end services to health insurance, pharma, medical devices and healthcare industries in the West. According to some estimates the total healthcare outsourcing services market is close to $30 billion today and is expected to grow at 10% over the next two-three years.

While companies started hiring nurses one year ago, no official marketing estimates on recruitment is available yet, say experts. Patni BPO for example, started recruiting nurses seven months back to handle long term care (LTC) management practice on behalf of insurance companies to manage medical care of elderly citizens in its Noida centre. As Sanjiv Kapur, Senior VP and Head Patni BPO, explains, “Nurses are involved in reviewing medical records, assessing risks, ensuring if medical check-ups are done on time. They also assist in timely administration of drugs, counselling and setting up physician appointments.”

The nurse also plays an important role in providing professional long-term care to the senior citizens. “Nurses in the US visit elderly patients to analyse their lifestyle and based on this they do a medical assessment. The assessment sheets are then sent to teams in India. Nurses here analyse and transcribe the details as per guidelines of the insurance company. The report is then sent back. Future diagnosis is done based on the assessment,” says Kapur.

“We handle adverse event reporting of drugs, product complains and questions, etc, for a leading US-based healthcare player servicing nearly 70 million customers,” says Ashutosh Vaidya, Head, Wipro BPO. Source

After the new software development of hotspots such as Ahmedabad, Pune and Goa developing quickly, Chandigarh is a ‘challenger’ location for the information technology and business process outsourcing.

‘Location roadmap for IT-BPO growth: Assessment of 50 leading cities’, a study conducted by the global consultancy major A.T. Kearney and National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), an Indian IT industry lobby, indicates that the BPO sector in the country has the potential to grow five-fold in the next five years.

And, why not, tier-2 cities like Chandigarh emerge as a ‘challenger’ locations for IT and BPO industry.

“India should not take her success for granted. It is a fact that China is behind us in high-end outsourcing. But China is a quick learner. They are investing heavily in education. I think we should now make efforts to ensure that not only seven cities which are leaders in IT sectors. But if we can build 50 cities, including places like Ludhiana, Amritsar, Chandigarh, then I don’t see any reason why we can’t continue to succeed as we have population as well as capability,” said Ganesh Natrajan, Chairman of NASSCOMM.

Due to its geographical location and being a planned city, Chandigarh is ready to host IT firms. The city has engineering and technology colleges that nurtures talent best suited to IT and BPO industry.

To provide consultancy and impart training in various disciplines of Information Technology, the Society for Promotion of IT Chandigarh (SPIC) has been set up under the aegis of the Department of Information Technology, Chandigarh.

“As far as development of human capital is concerned, Chandigarh administration has already started development of educational city where we have planned to have high-end courses. The criteria for designing the courses have been identified. Selection of partners for the educational city has already been entrusted to a committee of eminent experts in this domain. So, we have already selected partners for phase 1, 2 and third phase is in process,” said M S Brar, Director, IT, Chandigarh.

The Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park is chock-full of big IT players like IBM, Daksh, Software solutions Ltd., Infosys Technologies Ltd and many more.

With the IT sector boom in the region, opportunities are there for job seekers. (more…)

India’s BPO industry is set to see a logjam as it braces up for tough times owing to lack of new business additions, economic slowdown in the US and increasing competition from other countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.

The problem is likely to become critical because “the impending US elections have created a negative visibility factor for Indian BPO companies. No listed company in the US wants to dole out new business contract to an Indian BPO company. It creates a negative publicity for the company in terms of jobs being shipped abroad. MNC vendors such as IBM, Accenture and EDS now have strong offshore capabilities in India. Outsourcing to these vendors in the US does not create a negative visibility,” say Avinash Vashishtha, CEO and MD Tholons, an outsourcing advisory firm.

Stats speak for themselves. While IBM has built up a strong 73,000 workforce in India, Accenture has about 37,000 employees. Though Indian BPO companies are strong in terms of cost advantage, nobody wants to create a negative brand image by just saving a couple of thousand dollars. While MNCs are ramping up fast, Indian BPOs are not hiring that much.

Another factor which is coming into play these days is lessening of new pure voice contracts. Most of these pure voice-based contracts are now going to the Philippines. According to many surveys, Filipinos have a better voice and accent — closest to the American accent — which gives them a natural advantage. Metro Manila is the world’s largest concentration of BPOs in the world. About 240 BPO companies exist in and around Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Source

BPOM - a full service business process outsourcing company focused on serving middle-market enterprises, today announced financial results for the second quarter and first six months of 2008, the period ended June 30, 2008. The financial results represent the Company’s first quarter with positive EBITDA.
Operational Highlights
– Spiegel Brands, Inc., Chicago, the women’s clothing catalog marketer, signed a multi-year contract for its information technology outsourcing solutions.
– Shasun USA, Inc., one of the world’s largest producers of ibuprofen, signed a multi-year contract for its information technology outsourcing solutions.
– BPOMS signed a strategic relationship agreement with Tectura Corp., a leading Microsoft partner and global services company providing Microsoft-based technology solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, BPOMS will make its human resources outsourcing solutions available to Tectura’s North American clients, which are mid-market companies as well as divisions of larger enterprises.
– Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund and Deutsche Post Real Estate Germany purchased BPOMS’ Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution eReview.
– Eastman Kodak has honored BPOMS’ enterprise content management division for outstanding revenue generation and overall sales performance during 2007. In addition, for the fourth time, Kodak named BPOMS the top Canadian reseller of KODAK Service & Support, Eastman Kodak’s worldwide service organization.
– BPOMS’ IT outsourcing solutions division was awarded two key certifications: It successfully completed the 2008 SAS 70 Type II evaluation by Eisner, LLP, an independent service auditor, and also TrustWave’s TrustKeeper(R) Compliance Validation Service to meet the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.
– The Company raised $5.6 million in additional financing from the exercise of Warrants to Purchase Shares of BPOMS’ Series D-2 Convertible Preferred Stock.  Full News

NASSCOM President Som Mittal advocated launching of proactive programmes between the IT industry and academic world to meet the ever-growing talent needs of the BPO sector.

This type of initiatives like introducing industry-specific courses will be very critical to sustain the growth curve of the BPO industry in India. An adequately skilled workforce will have to be an integral part of the BPO industry to achieve its goal,” he said. ”Now outsourcing or offshoring has lost its meaning with drastic demographic changes we are witnessing,” he said.

However, the BPO industry should now start to develop skills having multi-language capability and not just depend upon English.

It is also important that the BPO indutry spread its foot print beyond the major seven cities in the country where 80 per cent works were being carried out.

He said it was important to note that out of 2.4 lakh graduates the country produced per annum, 55 per cent students came from semi-urban or rural areas. These people should be equipped with enough soft skills so that they become employable in service and technology-intensive sectors. The proposed diploma in BPO was the right step in this direction, he said.

Building a skilled force by offering this IGNOU programme, which accomodate one million students, is exciting. This is an experiment the world would be watching with interest,” he said. 

Mr Mittal said NASSCOM would soon bring out a ‘Career Guide’ on IT and BPO industry to sensitise the youth on the need of the sector. Source

Indian corporations have generated 30,000 U.S. jobs, according to a report by the US-India Business Council (USIBC).

The Tata Group employs 19,000 U.S. citizens in its 16 U.S. business and has invested over $3 billion in the country. The Essar Group employs 7,200 Americans in its operations in 12 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New York and Texas. HCL employs 3,000 at its 21 U.S. locations.

Over a dozen other major Indian corporations, such as Mahindra, Wipro, Essel-Propack, ITC Kitchens of India, Ranbaxy, Satyam and Wockhardt have significant U.S. employees.  Source

The BPO business will see a pull back in demand by the fourth quarter. Industry leaders say, incremental business is coming in from new and existing clients and the cost pressure has not dented plans significantly, atleast not for the big boys. Companies like Genpact and Accenture say there is plenty of light at the end of the tunnel as cost cutting measures in the US have resulted in more work being offshored.

Pramod Bhasin, President & CEO, GENPACT says, “The US companies which might have gone through some turmoil in the firstt quarter or the first half will start picking it up now because as they refocus on taking costs out I think that is a very important element of their strategy will be to aggressively drive out outsourcing even more.”

The Silver lining of the slowdown has been a significant drop in attrition rates, down to about 25-30%. Even Cost of hiring has reduced significantly  as have entry level wages. Industry leaders said they dont anticipate lay offs, or significant pay cuts.

Nandita Gurjar, VP & Group Head HRD, Infosys says, ”We are not seeing recession right now. In some clients we are seeing that the decision is taking much longer than it used to. But in terms of hiring we have made a commitment to the campus last year and we will be going ahead with that. Last year we hired 18,000 people this year we in it we would be hiring 20,000 people.”

PG Raghuraman, Lead Executive, Accenture says, “We’ve been having the best 6 quarters in a long long time so i’d say there is not much turmoil we are doing very well. We had about 25-26 billion dollars as our global revenue plan for next year and for the current year also we have reconfirmed the upper end of the guidance so we are looking at a very positive year. in terms of the verticals as I said there are a lot of vertical BPO opportunities that are coming up. it could be in eng services, product supply chain kind of companies.”

But a shakeout is inevitable. The next 12 months could see frenzied M&A action Industry sources say that after the captives it is now the turn of mid size cos. The biggest worry continues to be the lack of employable graduates and the end of tax incentives in 2010.