Thursday, May 10, 2007

BPO Industry!!

So here i am ..The BPO guy
And im gonna share ma life with all u ppl

Lemme first brief u abt the BPO industry
BPO means Business process outsourcing!!

Business Process Outsourcing has been the latest mantra in India today. As the current sources of revenue face slower growth, software companies are trying new ways to increase their revenues. BPO is top on their list today. IT services companies are making a quick entry into the BPO space on the strength of their existing set of clients.

The philosophy behind BPO is specific, do what you do best and leave everything else to business process outsourcers. Companies are moving their non-core business processes to outsource providers. BPO saves precious management time and resources and allows focus while building upon core competencies. The list of functions being outsourced is getting longer by the day. Call centres apart, functions outsourced span purchasing and disbursement, order entry, billing and collection, human resources administration, cash and investment management, tax compliance, internal audit, pay roll...the list gets longer everyday. In view of the accounting scandals in 2002 [Enron, WorldCom, Xerox etc], more and more companies are keen on keeping their investors happy. Hence, it is important for them to increase their profits. BPO is one way of increasing their profits.

Typically, a customer calls the call center [usually a toll-free number]. After pressing numerous numbers [1 for English, 2 for Spanish, 3 for bank balance!] the operator will answer your query by accesing the database. Call centres address sales support, airline/hotel reservations, technical queries, bank accounts, client services, receivables, tele marketing, market research.
If a bank shifts work of a 1000 people from US to India it can save about $18 million a year due to lower costs in India. According to Mckinsey, giant US pharma firms can reduce the cost of developing a new drug, currently estimated at between $600 million and $900 million by as much as $200 million if development work is outsourced to India.
Benefits derived from BPO can be summarized as follows:
Productivity Improvements
Access to expertise
Operational cost control
Cost savings
Improved accountability
Improved HR
Opportunity to focus on core business
Outsourcing is not new - it has been a popular management tool for decade. One can safely say outsourcing has evolved :-
1960's - time-sharing
1970's - parts of IT operations
1980's - entire IT operations
1990's - alliances/tie-ups
2000's - IT-enabled services
India has one of the largest pool of low-cost English speaking scientific and technical talent. This makes India one of the obvious choice to outsource to. Dell, Sun Microsystems, LG, Ford, GE, Oracle all have announced plans to scale up their operations in India. Others like American Express, IBM and British Airways are leveraging the cost advantage India has to offer while setting up call centres. Several foreign airline and banks have too set up business process operations in India.

Many European and US companies have realized that they should focus on their main business and outsource their Human Resource Department, accounting department etc. Bingo! it is here exactly India fits in! Today US corporations have embraced BPO wholeheartedly.

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