business analytics jobs in bangalore

Transformational Deals, Platform based offering, Multi Tower and Knowledge process outsourcing…are some of the latest jargons being used in the BPO industry today. What started with few companies a decade ago is now a mature industry with multiple players both Indian and MNCs. The last ten years have been an exciting ride for the industry. From low end transactional services to knowledge intensive activities like analytics, research & development have now become an integral part of the industry. Apart from just labor arbitrage and cost cutting off shoring has become a growth strategy for companies so that they can focus on their core activities. Some of the other reasons that have evolved over the years include access to qualified personnel, improving process efficiency, business process redesign, adopting industry practice etc. Companies across industries are outsourcing key business functions like IT, R&D, Finance & Accounting, Engineering, product design and procurement. As a result the offshore services providers are expanding geographically by establishing delivery centers in all parts of the world as customers require part of the services to be delivered domestically to reduce their perceived operational risk. In contrast some of the US outsourcers are moving into India and China to perform back office work for their clients. With so much happening so soon the industry has seen a large number of corporates (mostly big) come to India either to set up their own shops or to find vendors who can do work for them. BPO is a revolution that is part of every board room discussion today.

There could hardly be any fortune 500 company that hasn’t thought of or is not thinking about outsourcing. Off late the industry has seen consolidation as the bigger players expand their scale and scope with the increased M&A activity. Acquisitions like IBM-Daksh, Capgemini-Kanbay, Wipro-Spectramind are a proof to this. Just to add some numbers, the total exports from the sector is expected to exceed USD 8.3 billion in FY 2006-07, growing by 32 percent over the last year while the IT-BPO revenue is expected to exceed USD 47.8 billion, nearly aten fold increase from the revenue of USD 4.8 billion reported in FY1998.

The key verticals for the industry are Banking, Financial Services and Insurance, and technology (Hi tech/telecom) accounting for close to 60 percent of the total exports while Manufacturing, Retail, Media, Healthcare and Transportation are growing rapidly

However, there are some inherent perceived risks that the industry still needs to overcome. These include internal as well as external risks. Some of the internal risks include operational efficiency, corporate culture buy-in, acceptance by internal clients & loss of managerial control while the external risks include political backlash & instability, lack of acceptance by customers etc. In addition there are other risks like high employee turnover, data security, and intellectual property loss, cultural differences that are equally important and need constant monitoring.

Thus, though the industry has grown rapidly and will continue to do so, there are areas that can jeopardize its existence. Nonetheless, overall it’s a roller coaster journey that every big corporate wants to be a part of and the outlook for Indian IT-BPO looks bright and is on track to achieve its target of USD 60 billion in export revenue by FY 2010.

Source of data- Nasscom Review

The author is a Finance professional with over 7 years of experience in the Indian BPO industry. He can be contacted at jain_ankur77@yahoo.com