Call Center ....Business ...Is there a future in India?
Was reading the article at Business Week on Call Center Business in India...Lots of interesting data points:
"Call centers have become commoditized," says B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
That doesn't mean India won't be doing call center work anymore. But outsourcing powerhouse Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., for instance, has turned away potential clients offering call-center-only work. "We are thinking about whether this is work we really want to do," says TCS Executive Vice-President Phiroz Vandrevala. At Satyam, just 35% of business process outsourcing employees are in call centers, down from 60% 18 months ago, Raju says.
2000, they represented 85% of the total back-office business; now they're about 35%, according to Nasscom, India's outsourcing industry trade association. And while call centers are still growing in India, the business is expanding at about 30% annually, compared with 60% growth for nonvoice back-office work, Nasscom says.
The BPO industry doubled in size last year, to $6.3 billion, and is expected to clock 37% annual growth over the next five years, according to Nasscom.
Genpact, a former General Electric Co. (GE ) subsidiary spun off two years ago, prefers to take on jobs that let it tap its expertise in analyzing zillions of bits of data to help clients work more efficiently. If call centers happen to be part of the equation, that's fine, but Genpact is reluctant to take up contracts for call centers only. "We tell our clients, 'Don't start with call centers -- if you do, do it together with something else,"' says Genpact Chief Executive Pramod Bhasin. "This is harder than customers expect and needs to be handled carefully."
Source Business Week
"Call centers have become commoditized," says B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
That doesn't mean India won't be doing call center work anymore. But outsourcing powerhouse Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., for instance, has turned away potential clients offering call-center-only work. "We are thinking about whether this is work we really want to do," says TCS Executive Vice-President Phiroz Vandrevala. At Satyam, just 35% of business process outsourcing employees are in call centers, down from 60% 18 months ago, Raju says.
2000, they represented 85% of the total back-office business; now they're about 35%, according to Nasscom, India's outsourcing industry trade association. And while call centers are still growing in India, the business is expanding at about 30% annually, compared with 60% growth for nonvoice back-office work, Nasscom says.
The BPO industry doubled in size last year, to $6.3 billion, and is expected to clock 37% annual growth over the next five years, according to Nasscom.
Genpact, a former General Electric Co. (GE ) subsidiary spun off two years ago, prefers to take on jobs that let it tap its expertise in analyzing zillions of bits of data to help clients work more efficiently. If call centers happen to be part of the equation, that's fine, but Genpact is reluctant to take up contracts for call centers only. "We tell our clients, 'Don't start with call centers -- if you do, do it together with something else,"' says Genpact Chief Executive Pramod Bhasin. "This is harder than customers expect and needs to be handled carefully."
Source Business Week
posted by Prashanth Rai at 10:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home