NASSCOM’s annual studies on the IT-BPO industry show growth and gains for the sector on all fronts.

NASSCOM’s annual study on the performance of the IT services and BPO sector in 2006-07 has shown that it exceeded analyst expectations. The IT software and services segment alone notched up revenues of US$ 39.6 billion and a growth of 30.7 percent during the year. Based on these spiraling figures, NASSCOM is estimating 2007-08 growth statistics to touch anywhere between 24 and 27 percent.

Highlights of Indian software and services industry performance in FY 2006-07

Employee numbers:

Sector wise break-up:

Note: Totals may not add up due to rounding off.

More of this report can be discussed in detail later in another post

Adding on to the statistics that I had presented earlier, a bit more statistics on the revenue that the BPO industry had grossed up for this financial year.

According to a recent survey released by the National Association of Software & Services Companies & (NASSCOM), the information technology enables services (ITES) – business process outsourcing (BPO) sector in India is growing steadily and could reach $8 billion in 2007.

“In 2005-06, the industry size and growth exceeded our forecasts, reflecting strong demand. The entire software and services industry is expected to record revenues of $36-38 billion in fiscal year 2007; we expect the ITES-BPO segment to continue its growth momentum and expect exports to cross $ 8 billion during 2007, ” said Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM.

NASSCOM’s annual studies on the IT-BPO industry show growth and gains for the sector on all fronts.

NASSCOM’s annual study on the performance of the IT services and BPO sector in 2006-07 has shown that it exceeded analyst expectations. The IT software and services segment alone notched up revenues of US$ 39.6 billion and a growth of 30.7 percent during the year. Based on these spiraling figures, NASSCOM is estimating 2007-08 growth statistics to touch anywhere between 24 and 27 percent.

The growth that this industry has seen in the year 2005-06 will continue or, exceed this year and the preliminary statistics already says that the growth for this year till now is greater than what was anticipated.

But the sustenance of this growth depends on the employees and the management of these BPOs, to a great extent. If we are able to provide the kind of quality that is being expected of us, outsourcing will keep happening and BPOs will keep growing.

It seems newspapers are now realizing that BPO is a huge news generator for them. You would find some or, the other news in almost all of the leading dailies. Some of them are absolute crap and are baseless and stinky opinion of some individuals who are okay with sitting in the stadium and watching people play and who would then want to criticize them. But some of them are thoughts that one would ponder on. These prompt you to think.

One of these leading dailies came up with a news that the “Government is working on framing a health policy for BPO employees”.There was a minister’s comments which read, “It is sad to see BPO employees falling dead at the age of 30″. What else could I do but laugh at this comment. Finally I felt there was some minister who wanted to show that he was concerned. But was it real concern, or was it the eagerness to get into something that is the most happening thing in town. I would say it was more of the 2nd aspect mentioned above.

There was a comment from the newspaper itself who said that these things should be left to the discretion of the organization itself, which sounded a bit more logical to me. Why should the government interfere into the functioning of a company, more so when we know the state of the organizations that were being managed by these governments? People in these organizations would do everything but work. A few of them saw a drastic makeover after they were privatized. So is it apporpriate for the government to get into the functioning of the BPO industry.I feel, no. Rather what the government should do is frame a policy framework around which BPOs can frame their individual work culture based health policies, which would in turn not only help the employees but the industry as a whole also.

What are the major health problems that the BPO employees face?This is another important and interestin topin of discussion, which we could take up sometime later.

A leading daily wrote that “youngsters are turning away from BPO jobs because they have finally realised that the stress and abuse in a BPO is not worth the money they are paid”. There were also a few excerpts from comments made by a couple of college going students.There was something similar about what all of them said. They had a comment to make about the “Pseudo names” being used, the “abuses” one faces from customers and the “24/7″ environment.

A few questions that come to my mind is:

• Is 24/7 environment something that is new to us? Our factories have always worked 24/7 which employees working shifts. So what is it that is new about it? Why is it that the youth is afraid of working 24/7.
• Which “abuses” are we talking about?I have heard these very college going people abusing customer care executives at Indian call centers serving them for their mobile phone queries.Do we have the right to comment when we ourselves do not know how to behave.We have a tendency of even abusing each other when it comes to driving on the roads. So what culture are we fearing?
• Finally the use of “pseudo names”. There are not too many BPOs that encourage the use of pseudo names as they all are aware of the fact that a “John Moore” with an indian accent will only destroy their reputation.

Your answers to these questions would be similar to that of mine. Then why the hype of this “Stress”. We are in a way destroying one of the best employment opportunities available in our country by showing this negative approach to it.

Rapid transformation is taking place in the global BPO market. It is accompanied by increased spending in BPO services. Most of the leading business companies of the world are adopting BPO as a strategic business solution. The BPO industry is very diverse, with several sub-segments, each displaying its own unique characteristics.

According to Gartner, a market research firm, the size of the global BPO market by 2007 would be $173bn, of which $24.23bn would be outsourced to offshore contractors. Of this, India has the potential to generate $13.8bn in revenue. The projection includes revenues of pure play Indian BPO service providers, captives operations of MNCs operating in India, third party service providers and BPO subsidiaries of IT services firms.

North America will remain the dominant market for ITES-BPO services, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total ITES-BPO market in 2006. The main verticals in the North American ITES-BPO market are telecommunications, financial services, health care and energy. Commonly outsourced processes include internal auditing, payroll, human resources, benefits management, contact centers/customer care, payments/ claims processing, real estate management, and supply chain management.

The Western Europe ITES-BPO market is expected to account for 22 percent of the market by 2006. The financial services sector is the largest consumer of BPO-ITES services in Europe, followed by utilities and telecommunications. Human resources, finance and accounting are expected to be the fastest growing service lines.

The Asia Pacific ITES-BPO market is expected to account for 18 percent of the total ITESBPO market in 2006. Companies in the Asia-Pacific region have traditionally outsourced only manufacturing activities. Given the relative infancy of the ITES-BPO market, this region is expected to experience rapid growth over the next few years. Growth will primarily be driven by cost-reduction and the need to focus on core competencies. HR, finance and accounting are expected to be the key growth areas in the Asia-Pacific region in the years ahead.

(Source- BPO India)