The global information technology and business process outsourcing market will end 2009 with total revenues of $373 billion, 14.4 per cent higher than the $326 billion recorded in 2008.  India and China will remain at the top of the list, with expected revenues amounting to $48 billion and $28 billion, respectively.

India would have 44.8 per cent of the total outsourcing pie and China 25.9 per cent, according to Canadian-based ICT research and advisory firm XMG Global. The growth rate for 2009 will be, however, less than the 19 per cent that the industry recorded in 2008 over 2007, XMG said in its annual year-end prediction of where the offshoring and global outsourcing industry will finish.

“The market share of India is similar to 2008 and has mostly to do with the Satyam accounting adjustments and the shifting of work to other offshore countries. In other words, we are seeing new levels of normalcy in which the recession has provided the opportunity to rationalise and shift work to offshore destinations other than India,” XMG Global’s Senior Analyst, Mr Vincent Altez, said in the report. (more…)

More business process outsourcing (BPO) service providers in India will exit the market in coming years, as it is difficult for them to 
stay afloat in the current form due to the slowdown, according to a study released here Wednesday.  “One-quarter of the top business process outsourcing (BPO) service providers will not exist as separate entities by 2012,” said the study by IT research and advisory firm Gartner.

Market exit, acquisitions and the ascent of new vendors will rearrange the BPO provider landscape in the coming years, it said. “As providers are exposed to the economic crisis, loss-making contracts and an inability to adapt to standardised delivery models, many will struggle to survive in their current form,” said Robert H. Brown, research vice-president of Gartner.

“Some will be acquired and some will exit the market completely to be replaced by dynamic new players delivering BPO as automated, utility services,” he added. (more…)

A year after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) conditionally relaxed rules on IT-BPO employees working from home, Raman Roy, chairman & managing director of Quatrro BPO Solutions, has started pilot projects in Mumbai and Delhi to explore the possibility of scaling up the model.

Quatrro is the first BPO to have secured permission for this model from DoT. “This is a provisional permission. Once the company is able to meet all our security concerns, we will grant them a licence,” confirmed a senior DoT official on condition of anonymity. The licence is a prerequisite for service providers to provide infrastructure and last-mile connectivity.

The $11-billion BPO sector employs over 750,000 people, and “working from home” could add significantly to the employment numbers, said Roy. He added that he has been “toying with the idea for nearly two years before I got help from software body Nasscom and the required permission from the DoT”. Roy plans to launch another pilot in Chennai soon. He has also appointed a dedicated team of six senior employees — including a lawyer and a technician — to make these pilots successful. Full News

BPO giant TeleTech Holdings, Inc. continues to be the fastest growing business process outsourcing company in the country as it sees promising opportunities for growth despite the challenges in the economy.

TeleTech sees the current economic climate as a great time to open two new sites in the Makati Central Business District at the EcoPlaza Building in the Don Chino Roces Extension and at the GT International Tower along Ayala Avenue.

One of the driving forces behind this expansion is the consolidation of Teletech’s Global Business Services (GBS). The first-class facility in EcoPlaza Building will house 300 seats of specialized back office functions and shared services that support the global TeleTech operations with finance and accounting, payroll processing, human resource outsourcing, quality assurance, and workforce management. (more…)

Anthem Solutions, Inc., a managed services provider engaged in facilitating the entry and expansion of business process outsourcing (BPO) companies in the country has received another accreditation from the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) for its newest facility in Ortigas, Pasig City in partnership with one of the country’s leading real estate developers, Ortigas and Company
Limited Partnership (OCLP). Anthem Solutions is an affiliate of the leading systems integration and technology solutions provider, Diversified Technology Solutions International, Inc. (DTSI).

Silver City in Frontera Verde, Pasig City, is a 22,000 sq.m. building initially used as an auto mall and events venue. It is the newest addition to Anthem’s roster of PEZA-certified facilities in Metro Manila and around the Philippines, which include One World Square in McKinley Hill and Fort Legend in Global City, Fort Bonifacio, and Amigo Mall in Iloilo. This is not the first time Anthem has partnered with OCLP, as Anthem setup facilities at the Ortigas Building in Ortigas Center and VMall of Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan City.

“As a corporate citizen, we look forward to helping boost the economy of the country by providing world-class facilities that will attract BPO companies to set up offices in Philippines that will in turn provide more job opportunities to Filipinos,” said OCLP Chief Operating Officer, Rex C. Drillon II. Full News

To continuously attract foreign direct investments (FDIs), the Philippines needs to accelerate the expansion of the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector in the immediate future, a foreign economist said yesterday. “As an immediate response, the Philippines must accelerate the growth of the BPO sector,” MasterCard economic advisor for Asia and Pacific region Yuwa Hedrick-Wong said in an economic briefing.

He said global investors are looking for investment opportunities in the emerging Asian market, particulary India, Vietnam and Indonesia. He added that the Philippines must also shift its export focus from the United States to China and the rest of Asia.

In 1997, 35 percent of Philippine exports found its way to the US, just one percent of to China, and 42 percent to the rest of Asia. Last year, the US market settled for 17 percent of Philippine exports, a larger 11 percent to China and 50 percent to the rest of Asia. The MasterCard economist said the Philippines also has the potential to grow by 2.5 percent this year, and four percent next year. (more…)

Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) is conducting a strategic review of the information technology and business process outsourcing assets that came with its 2008 acquisition of EDS, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

“Inside ITO and BPO, (we’re) conducting reviews to see which ones fit with HP’s strategy and which ones bring the best value for the corporation,” Joe Eazor, senior vice president and general manager, EDS, said in response to an analyst’s question about divesting these assets. Eazor was speaking at the 2009 Citi Technology Conference in New York.

Sources told Reuters last month that HP was considering selling or shutting parts of its outsourcing business to focus on the higher-margin areas of its technology services business. HP, which bought EDS last year for $13 billion, intends to keep those parts of the business process outsourcing operation that complement its hardware and software offerings, Eazor said.

“The focus will be on those areas that provide the greatest amount of leverage,” Eazor said. Shares of HP closed Wednesday’s trading session up 1.1 percent at $45.98 on the New York Stock Exchange. Source

The proposed Global Delivery Centre of BPO (business process outsourcing) firm Genpact in the city, which is already running behind schedule, is set to face further delay. Genpact, the BPO arm of the US-based General Electric, had aimed to operationalize its delivery centre in the city by the fourth quarter of 2009-10. But as things stand today, the project is unlikely to take off before March 2010.The global financial turmoil has hit the operations of Genpact and the BPO firm is unlikely to resume construction work before March 2010, a senior official of the state IT department told Business Standard.

Initially, Genpact planned to hire 500 professionals for its delivery centre in the city and later ramp up the headcount to 3,000.

Genpact had so far only put up a boundary wall for its proposed centre which would have a total built-up area of seven lakh sq ft. Another IT firm MindTree Consulting Limited which had announced a software development centre in Bhubaneswar at an investment of Rs 200 crore is non-committal on its project. (more…)

At a time when software firm Mahindra Satyam is rationalising its headcount, its BPO arm seems to be on a hiring spree with plans to recruit 300 employees by the next month. The company has recently bagged a major contract from a domestic client for providing it back office support.

“To support the client we have already hired 700 employees in the last one month and will hire another 300 by the end of next month,” Mahindra Satyam BPO CEO Vijay Rangineni said.

However, he declined to divulge the name of the new client or the deal size. According to sources, the new win is in the telecom space.The total headcount of the company after the recruitment would stand at 2,900. (more…)

The Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) is looking at Iloilo City as a new investment hub for business process outsourcing and information technology, according to its top official. In a presentation at the Iloilo-Guimaras Investment Forum Friday, BPAP CEO Oscar R. Sañez said Iloilo was third in BPAP’s Top 10 Next Wave Cities, due mainly to the low cost of doing business in the province and the availability of talents.

However, Iloilo has only 4,000 IT-BPO workers, which can be easily increased to 20,000 workers in today’s conditions, Sañez said. “Iloilo City has much untapped potential, a large graduate pool and low industry presence. [It] should have more IT-BPO jobs considering the size of its graduate pool,” he said.

Sañez explained that the National Capital Region has 25 percent of the country’s graduating population, but holds 80 percent of the IT-BPO jobs. In contrast, the Visayas, which accounts for 21 percent of all graduates, holds only 10 percent of the IT-BPO jobs. (more…)