United Telecom to join BPO bandwagon ...

Business Process Outsourcing indisputably remains the hottest segment in the information technology industry with new BPO outfits starting up operations even at this rather late stage of the hype circle.

The latest to throw its hat into the ring is United Telecom, one of India's biggest business houses.

United Telecom has invested $5 million to build a sleek 2,50,000 square feet building in a seven-acre campus at Whitefield in Bangalore. For telecom and other equipment, it has invested $7 million, taking its total investment into the BPO venture to $12 million.

Initially, United Inter-Active Center Limted, as the BPO venture will be called, is to begin operations with about 100 seats. In about 3 years, it hopes to ramp it to 4000 seats and become the second largest BPO company in India, after GE.

More Outsourcing to India

London-based Allen & Overy and Chicago-based Baker & McKenzie have both announced that they are outsourcing support services from their respective headquarters to jurisdictions in Asia.

A&O will relocate around half of its document production department to Chennai in southern India. The deal - negotiated with US firm Office Tiger - will deliver cost savings to A&O as graduate-level staff are available at far more competitive salaries in South Asia, said the firm's head of operational services in London, Stephen Chernikeeff.
Chernikeeff added that the London-based project would not directly affect its operations in Hong Kong and Singapore.

"It is possible we will integrate the work sent to London from our international offices with the work we will send to Chennai."
Partners at the firm's offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and other locations would also have the option of requesting that work remain in London, he said.

Meanwhile, Bakers is finalising the relocation of three separate IT functions to South-East Asia.

Procurement Outsourcing Poised to Double

Results of the survey, which entailed querying more than 200 procurement directors from a wide variety of industries across Europe and the United States, indicated that companies in France are most likely to outsource their procurement in the near future, with 64 percent of respondents there saying they would do so by 2006. Companies in the United Kingdom and United States were the next most likely to outsource procurement functions by 2006 (58 percent each), followed by companies in Italy (42 percent). Thirty nine percent of all companies from Germany, Austria and Switzerland said they anticipate outsourcing procurement processes in the next three years.

'Survey results show that procurement outsourcing is here to stay,' said Richard Laub, the partner who heads Accenture's European procurement practice. 'Looking ahead, however, the principal challenge will be to derive more than just cost-savings. Procurement outsourcing is a powerful weapon that savvy companies can use to build new strategic and competitive advantages.'

HSBC to OutSource More Business to India

HSBC already employs 5,000 people outside the bank in India alone, and this number is expected to increase as the bank moves more jobs to Asia. HSBC has already announced that it will move 4,000 jobs in the UK to its centres in Asia and while the unions there are up in arms against the plan, Mr Mehta does not believe that the outsourcing trend can, in any way, be reversed.

One more good new for Indian Outsourcing Industry

India expected to be third largest IT & BPO service provider by 2008

Kumar Mahadeva – chief of Cognizant Technologies – which supplies application outsourcing services and enterprise consultation solutions to various Fortune 500 and Blue Chip companies in the US and Europe has mulled that by 2008, BPO & IT sector in India is expected to be the third largest in the world after US and Japan. The business process outsourcing services in India are gaining high due to massive shift over by US corporate sector in search of economical resources.

Outsourcing business process services as a sector along with IT services is expected to register seven percent market holding from the current two percent mark. Mahadev was speaking at a formal lunch ceremony organized by India-America Chamber of Commerce in New York. The political side of Business Process Outsourcing sector in India is certainly heating up Mahadev had added in his remark.

Outsourcing by European FI up for 18% CAG: Datamonitor

The decision to outsource business process by corporate firms has witnessed a gradual increase over last few years especially in the US market. Amongst the other sectors outsourcing in financial services is as well rapidly growing. Though outsourcing in the financial services is nothing new, the revolution is the outsourcing to offshore location.

While reading an article by Benjamin Beasley-Murray in Global Finance [http://globalf.vwh.net/] it occurred to my knowledge that outsourcing in British market is prevailing since 1968. Outsourcing business process by Financial Institute (FI) in Europe to offshore locations will generate revenues worth $240 million, which is CAG of 18% estimates DATAMONITOR.

IBM bags P&G BPO deal worth $400 m

Household goods producer Proctor & Gamble has offered a 10-year deal to IBM for business process outsourcing (BPO) of its Human Resource functions. The deal worth $400 million would enable IBM to support 98,000 P&G employees with payroll processing, benefits administration, compensation planning, expatriate and relocation services, travel and expense management and HR data management.

The move comes in wake of the rapid moves by companies outsourcing their business process in order to stay focused on core business issues. With the deal approximately a staff of 800 will transfer to IBM, likely from January 1st next year when IBM will take operational control of three HR shared service delivery centers in Costa Rica, the UK and the Philippines.

BPO to yield $25.7 billion by 2009: Frost and Sullivan

The up surging growth in business process outsourcing market has been phenomenal over the years. Frost and Sullivan claim the outsource business process market to harvest revenues worth $22 billion with projections of $25.7 billion by 2009. Another report suggests that global outsourcing spending is projected to top $1.2 trillion by the end of 2003.

India has emerged as the leader in outsource business process industry by extracting more than 65% worth of outsourcing trade. But recently countries like South Africa and Asian markets as the Philippines and Malaysia has been making waves in tapping business process outsource market. E-Centric a South African based call center has undertaken seven call center campaigns for UK and Dutch companies over the past six months. These are the clear indications of the growth in the sector as more and more companies are looking ahead to outsource their business processes.

Outsource to India in motion. But at some cost

Outsourcing business process walks into a new facet as outsourcing churns into a wider segment of activities. WeP Peripherals – which is a division of Wipro Infotech is set to launch India’s first business printing outsourcing service. WeP Peripherals would provide anytime, anywhere printing and includes not only onsite printing, but also offsite printing and from outside at print kiosks.

But even as US firms are happy enough to outsource business process to India – it seems the US government have other ideas. Perhaps due to outcry – erupted in US against outsourcing to India sometimes ago the visa-norms are somewhat restricted by US embassy. But the government is more concerned about the security issue. Several business process-outsourcing firms from India are facing blockades to send their employees to US on temporary work.

Previously the US embassy would automatically clear visas of its employees to travel between the US and India. Now each employee is being asked to appear personally before the embassy officials for checking antecedents. US Companies outsourcing business process to India are likely to get bothered with such a move.

P & G strike outsourcing deal with IBM Corp.

Procter & Gamble – in production of household products and other variants is planning to outsource its business process services to IBM Corp. in order to provide HR services to its employees. Procter & Gamble – which markets more than 300 products to-date has made its presence felt in 140 countries and provides employment to over 98,000 people. The company is negotiating a deal with IBM to outsource its business process activities in order to focus on other key areas as improving delivery and transmitting their resources towards its core business.

Outsourcing business process services in catching the grip as more and more companies are trying to focus on their core business performance. The move by Procter & Gamble is in the similar circumstance. Though the details of deal is not yet disclosed – analysts estimates it to be around $500 million. Procter & Gamble will be transferring about 700 of its employees to IBM in context of its outsourced business process.

Outsource business process - Ignites the Indian economy

outsourcing has become an essential part of corporate business strategy to cut costs in these times, with the downturn in the US market. American companies have found countries like India, China and Philippines as ideal destination to set up call center service providers and BPOs.

India has been in the forefront of this trend especially since India has a huge student population proficient in English and a high unemployment ratio. Call centers and BPOs have not just come up in metro cities like Bombay and Delhi but even in smaller places like Chandigarh, Pune and Nagpur where infrastructure costs are lesser.

This trend has woken up the indian economy to a certain extent and promises to generate a lot of revenue for India. Predictions of $13.8 billion by 2007 makes the call center services and business process outsourcing industry very attractive as, not just a business proposition but also as a job provider.

More on outsouricng business process...

Outsource business process - The Latest news in the business

ACS gets Expanded BPO Contract with WellChoice

A world class provider of business process and information technology outsourcing solutions, ACS has been awarded a new and expanded business process outsourcing contract with WellChoice. Wellchoice, as you know, is the holding company of the largest commercial health insurer in the State of New York, based upon HMO and PPO membership. ACS will provide Business Process Outosurcing services such as mailroom, imaging, and expanded data capture services to support WellChoice's healthcare claims administration.

More on Outsourcing business process...

Providing efficient BPO solutions has made India the hub of the outsourcing world. With industry experts very optimistic in this field, it has become evident that the business process outsourcing industry is going to generate a huge amount of jobs. In the latest reports, its estimated that outsourcing is going to create 10 times the jobs it has, by the year 2008.

More on outsourcing business process, tomorrow...

Outsource business process - UK investigating job losses

A house of Commons committee plans to investigate into the loss of jobs in call centers and IT from the UK to countries like India. Jobs moving out of the UK has perturbed many in the UK who think that the IT revolution should create some kind of a job miracle. They also plan to question global telecom giant BT over the loss of call center jobs in the Uk as part of a large enquiry into the subject.

Many American and Euoprean firms have set up call centers and business process outsourcing operations in India and other Asian countries because of the low cost at high efficiency factor and a large educated talent pool.

By end 2003, HSBC plans to employ 8,000 people in India, China and Malaysia while BT is planning to create 2,200 new call center services jobs in India. Aviva, offering insurance serivces, plans a 1,000-person call centre and claims-processing unit in India.

More on outsourcing business process - News

Silicon Graphics plans to increase R & D outsourcing from India It is planning to invest in low -end as well as high-end jobs making it a one-of-a-kind outsourcer. SGI is investing in some R&D projects in India. The company has a wholly-owned software company Alias specializing in 3-D modelling, animation, entertainment as well as industrial designing and styling space.

More on outsourcing business process, tomorrow

Outsourcing business process- the latest news

Among the profusion of outsourcing units set up in India, Promantra Synergies Solutions has set up a business process outsourcing unit in Hyderabad at Cyber Gateway, Hitec city. Its supposed to be the first healthcare BPO in India focusing on providing core processes to US healthcare providers.

This Hyderabad centre will have 30 seats initially and will increase it to 150 seats in a period of 6 months. Investment-wise, they are investing Rs 2.5 crore initially and will increase it to Rs 12.5 crore in a year.

More news on outsourcing business process

China wont be a threat to India in the business process outsourcing sector- So claim most industry experts, not just with facts and figures but with the trends and future investments in this sector and of course, English. This lingua franca of the business world still remains elusive to mainstream chinese business. With most voice-based outsourcing projects requiring a sound knowledge of English, China is sure to lose most of the business.

Besides this, China will take a lot more time to become really proficient in understanding and speaking English than is made out. China is definitely a threat to India but only in the long run.

For more on outsourcing business process, check this page tomorrow...

Outsourcing business process - Back to school!

Call center service providers and business process outsourcing operations have always faced a high attrition rate problem of almost 30-40% per year. In order to contain this problem, BPO firms have now tied up with management institutes to upgrade their employees' skills. AV Birla's Transworks with NMIMS,mumbai and ICFAI, Sitel India with Welingkar's Institue of Management have taken up this challenge to reduce the problem that plagues their industry in no small measure.

Most BPO employees are young and wish to pursue higher education resulting in higher attrition rates. By offering such programs with weekend classes, everyone's happy! The managment programs are also designed to suit the needs of the BPO and call center industry.

More on outsourcing business process news...tomorrow

Outsourcing business process - Into high skill zone

Outsourcing business process started off as a means for American companies to shed off laborious work like data entry and customer interaction. They found that India and other Asian that were confident with their English skills could do their job at nearly one-fifth the cost. This was just 3-4 years back...

Now, the Indian call center and BPO industry has come a full circle. They have entered into an area where they have started affecting the employability of their American counterparts. With more efficiency and better analytical skills, Indian companies have been able to corner the maximum amount of the outsourcing business and have gone on to vie for projects higher up in the value chain.

From outsourcing software projects to development centers in India to the humble call center, India has it all. The next boom is in the outsourcing of financial services. But this is after India has scooped nearly 60% of the $16 billion offshore information technology services market. Almost 2 million jobs are predicted to leave American shores for better quality and economical services in India in the finance sector.

In spite of the hue and cry over outsourcing in America, they realise that it is an economic necessity for them to sustain their corporations. The outsourcing and call center boom has created nearly 100,000 jobs in the last 2 years in the business process outsourcing and call center services market.

Most analysts say that the reason for the outsourcing boom in India is because Indians are good at analytics and mathematics. The signs that India is moving higher up in the value chain of outsourcing is evident from companies like GE Capital. It not only has a call center operation in India but also runs a "center of excellence," which analyzes credit card data and demand trends, with 400 on its staff.

The next natural step in this area should be of outsourcing business process from the design and improvement stage rather than just out-tasking projects. That will be the true test in this industry.

Outsourcing business process - latest news

Among a select group of companies, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation is a among the best offshore outsourcing firms in the 2003 Healthcare Informatics 100 list. With a combination of Healthcare Industry Expertise, Big Cost Savings and Technical Superiority, it has been able to increase its stronghold in the business with shrewd marketing innovation strategies.
Cognizant is expert at helping health insurers manage applications, integrate systems, comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations and outsource business processes through a unique on-site/off-shore model.

More on outsourcing business process...

With outsourcing being the new mantra on the cost cutting block, many companies follow the herd mentality and enter this sector without having any customized strategy. In a similar statement made by Gartner Consulting director Christopher Ganly, he says that most organizations have missed the point when it comes to BPO.

Many organizations that get into outsourcing tie ups only for cost cutting purposes, often unstrategically, end up ruing the fact that they incur more costs in some other parts of the organization. Often, these costs are uncontrollable and their quality of service suffers. A more holistic approach has to be taken while considering outsourcing decisions, he said. Any outsourcing decision should be based on sound strategy with a long term vision of the company in mind.

Outsourcing business process in India slated to become a soaring sector with revenues of $13.8 billion by 2007, according to Gartner. Whether companies can make tangible benefits out of this and improve their service, only time will tell...

More on outsourcing business process...tomorrow

Outsource business process - the latest news

GE to provide third party business process outsourcing services

GE's BPO, which until now was providing business process outsourcing solutions to its multiple operations globally, is now going to provide solutions to third parties. Though still in the initial phase, this will add one more player in the highly competitive business process outsourcing industry.

It's BPO arm, GE Capital International Services (GECIS) provides backoffice operations for GE capital's businesses with a staff of 11,500. This move will not only bring down its costs but it can also use its expertise in multiple domains like finance and accounting, insurance underwriting, claims processing, industrial and equipment business, data modelling and analytics support. This can increase the competition in the business process outsourcing area.

Outsourcing business process has become a booming industry in the last few years with many American corporations prefering work done at a cheaper cost from Asian countries like India and Philippines.

More on business process outsourcing news, tomorrow...

Outsourcing business process - News

Linux Vs. Microsoft

With outsourcing business process becoming a booming industry in India, software programmers have come into the limelight once again, after the dotcom boom. In this outsourcing frenzy major players like Microsoft are facing competition from comparative newbies, Linux. Linux developed by Linus Torvalds has developed a huge market in recent years. Nearly 10% of PCs in India will be sold with linux by 2004, from 0 in january last year. It costs a tenth of the windows operating system and has been able to capture about 20% of the server market. With most outsourcing projects dependent so much on IT services cost cutting and efficiency in softwares could give companies that edge over others in the outsourcing business.

Outsourcing has emerged as the new trend among american companies to cut costs and streamline business process. They have been able to use labor from asian countries like China, India and Philippines to create a market for such services. From its fledgling stages in the late 1990s to revenue projections of $13.8 billion for 2007, the business process outsourcing industry has come a long way.

More on outsourcing business process, tomorrow...

Outsourcing business process and BPOs - Giving rise to a new outsourcing business

The huge investment and opportunities in the BPO and call center industry has given opportunities for numerous ancillary businesses. BPOs and call centers themselves outsource a lot of their basic necessities giving rise to the 'outsourcing' outsourcing industry.

From canteens, transportation, facility management to training, numerous businesses have build around the BPO and call center industry. So much so, that many companies spend as much as 10-15% of their revenues on these essential services. Wipro's Spectramind, the largest third party call center in India spends nearly 8% of its revenues, that's 16 crore of its 188 crore(last year).

With attrition a major factor in the call center and bpo industry and with regular night shifts, transportation can often be a problem, especially in cities like Mumbai and Bangalore. To solve this problem, companies have had to hire transport facilities giving an opportunity to people like Jatinder Singh Grover, who incidentally ran a fleet operation of diesel buses in Delhi (he had to give this up when Delhi banned diesel buses in 2001). Starting from 2 Tata Sumos, he now has a fleet of 55 catering to call centers and BPOs. House-keeping has turned out to be a lucrative business for many and training for voice, English language and cultural nuances has become a part 'n parcel of running a BPO-dependent business.

The BPO-ancillary industry will grow as the Business Process Outsourcing and call center industry grows. With a projected $13.8 billion growth in the BPO industry, their seems opportunity for many such ancillary services. There is plenty of scope in this area with a projected Rs. 6,300 crore BPO-ancillary industry in the making. With Business process outsourcing units cropping up in metros as well as in small cities, ancillary services such as these cannot be far behind.

About 6 lakh jobs could be created just in support services by 2007. This surely is in India's favor, what with India being the hotbed of the call center and business process outsourcing industry.

The scope for the outsourcing and call center business to contribute constructively to the GDP is tremendous. Besides with unemployment being a major factor, call centers and BPOs will surely change the face of india's job market.

More on outsourcing business process, tomorrow...