Making small cities BPO Ready

The BPO Association of India and the World BPO Forum have joined hands to address the human resource crunch faced by the BPO industry in tier 2 cities. By Mehak Chawla

The BPO industry in India has passed the $15 billion mark. Although it is managing to grow at a steady pace, the exhilarating growth rates of the past decade seem to have evaporated since FY 2009. Gone are the days of 35% growth. Of late, the industry’s growth figures have hovered between 12-17% and 2011 was no different. BPO exports in India grew by a little over 12% in FY 2011 while the domestic BPO sector clocked a better performance growing by 17% in the same period.

With locations like Philippines having overtaken India in terms of voice delivery, the pressure to oust India from its position as the BPO hub of the world is immense. Though we still remain the largest BPO player across the globe, if we are to sustain decent levels of growth, it is imperative that the industry starts looking at other avenues.

Mostly that works out to moving to tier two cities. Though talk of BPO outfits expanding beyond the tier one cities has been around for a while and, a few players are already experimenting with the model, the shift is easier said than done. The biggest challenge here is the resource crunch in terms of skilled workers. While the quality of workforce can suffice to cater to the requirements of the domestic industry, the bar would certainly need to be raised while offering services to international clients. Consequently, a big need for training the workforce in tier 2 cities has emerged. It is this training gap that the BPO Association of India (BAI) and World BPO Forum are looking to bridge with their recent tie-up.

The Partnership

The BAI recently joined hands with World BPO Forum and World BPO Forum International Center Services (WICS) to organize 26 BPO conferences across India in 26 different cities.

“Indian BPO players can reduce their operational expenses by as much as 25-30% by moving to tier 2 and tier 3 cities  and, at the same time, expand the $1.4 billion domestic BPO industry. However, we have to deal with the talent crunch first, because growth is related to human resources and the industry will only move to places where the resources are,” explained Babu Lal Jain, Chairman WICS & President, World BPO Forum. With over 230,000 jobs expected to be created in the BPO industry in 2012, as per NASSCOM, Jain explained that the aim of the conference was to reach tier 2 cities and create awareness.

Modus-Operandi

BAI and World BPO Forum are looking at various other modes of alliances in order to provide BPO training. For instance, revealed Jain, they have already signed an MoU with the University of Rajasthan for providing soft skills BPO training to about 2,500 students. “We are aiming to provide a balance of soft skills and industry discipline to students, since the BPO industry is dynamic and it is important for them to understand the basic discipline of the industry,” said Jain.

Mohit Saxena, SVP, Operations, iQor, explained that the entire BPO training can be done through the Web with courses ranging from a duration of three months to an year through his company’s enterprise-wide CRM and training tool call Sqool. Due to increasing work pressure and high attrition, the training time in BPOs has been greatly crunched, and Web training, felt Saxena, was the only solution since it did not come with a time barrier. In the wake of external challenges that are coming from the political front from the US and UK labor unions, India has little choice but to diversify its BPO offerings while further reducing their operational costs. The move has already started, and the lack of a trained workforce is the only thing that is keeping giants like TCS and Infosys from setting up facilities in tier 2 cities.

mehak.chawla@expressindia.com