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Skyline Business School |
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Skyline Business School |
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Issue:1
BPO Degree in Indian Colleges?
If the BPO sector has its way, a graduation course in BPO is not a far-fetched dream.
Indian companies doing back office work for multinationals are keen to align education
with the needs of the BPO industry. Lobby group Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has
begun discussions with the University Grants Commission (UGC) to see whether specific
courses can be offered for the BPO sector. Courses offered might just include a semester
in American, British and Australian culture and accent, a semester on companies located in
various client geographies, a semester on their accounting practices, another semester on
key processes being provided by India (customer service, collections, recoveries), a
semester in IT.
Result: Guaranteed employment in India's $2.3 billion outsourcing industry; a future in a
sector which will generate revenues worth $60 billion by the year 2012.
Source: www.economictimes.com 23rd January 2004
BPO hiring ads to get bigger, better
Expansion by existing BPO players, new entrants, bigger projects, mergers and acquisitions
and the setting up of R&D bases make for perfect ingredients for mammoth recruitment
drives that are only set to get bigger and better. Attracting the right talent in big
numbers in the coming months continues to be high priority for IT/ITES companies.
Industry estimates peg the current size of this segment at over Rs 150 crore. The primary
objective is attracting potential employees, constant recruitment advertising achieves
more. Its importance in terms of brand building and communicating the company's culture
and value proposition. Presently the average spend by an IT/ITES company on recruitment
advertising is about Rs 45 lakh per annum, which looks all set to go up.
Source: The Economic Times 10th January
2004
UNCTAD for multilateral trade deal on BPO
The UNCTAD has called for India to take initiative to see legal restrictions are brought
within the coverage of the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS). UNCTAD says the
services have the potential to lift India out of poverty. Contrary to public perception
that services provide employment for highly skilled workers, calculations have revealed
that nearly two-thirds of employment in the services sector consists of low or medium
skilled people, pointing to their high potential for poverty alleviation.
Source: Press Trust of India 11th January
2004
HCL tech to triple BPO headcount
HCL Technologies plans to increase manpower in its BPO business in 12 months to 5000 from
the current level of 1800. Adding to the $160 million order which it had received from
British Telecom, market sources estimate that this move has been generated by a contract
which it has got from its existing client, Federated Department Stores that owns brands
like Macy's and Bloomingdale's. The company has set up two centers at Noida and Chennai to
service this new order. HCL, which had started with low-end operations, has now moved to
offer high-end solutions wherein the company employs doctors to evaluate test results,
lawyers for re-mortgaging and financial experts for bond remodeling.
Source: The Hindu 11th January 2004
Anti-BPO bill passed in the US
A $328 billion spending bill aimed at prohibiting government contractors from shifting
work overseas was passed by the US Senate on Friday. The bill has a provision, which is
likely to become the first Federal law that limits companies from performing contracted
work outside the US ever since outsourcing became a potent political issue an year ago.
The Chamber of Commerce and other business groups said the move would undercut the ability
of US companies to compete with their overseas rivals.
Source: www.economictimes.com
23rd January 2004
Wake up call for Indian BPO companies
Dell and Lehman Brothers' decision to shift voice customer-care operations back to
the USA signals that Indian BPO companies still need to work harder on Quality of Service.
Quality coupled with infrastructure is still a bone of contention for MNC's that had
sought to cut costs in the (US and Europe) sluggish economy. Late last year, Lehman not
satisfied with quality of service that Wipro provided, stopped outsourcing help-desk job
to India. Cost-effectiveness being a sure advantage, quality of manpower can't be
overlooked. The major issue is the accent. Diana Christine, Director, Quality and
Training, Infowavz, says, "We reject nearly 50% of recruitment applications that come
because of quality. Even after proper training, these guys don't match our
expectations."
Source: DATAQUEST January 15th 2004
Wipro - Upbeat on Outsourcing
Wipro Technologies has shown double-digit sequential revenue growth for the second
consecutive quarter. Revenues in the third quarter of current fiscal grew 41% over the
corresponding quarter last fiscal to touch Rs 1147 crore. Wipro, during the quarter added
24 new customers. Of the 2872 people that Wipro added in Q3, 1908 were for IT services and
964 for IT-enabled services (Spectra mind). Wipro's attrition rate is 17% and according to
Mr. Vivek Paul, Vice Chairman attrition is high at the junior level. The general
perception in the industry is that this is due to the unattractive salary that the company
pays for 1 to 3 years experienced workers.
Source: Economic Times 21st January 2004
IBM plans to move jobs outside US
IBM expects to save $168 million annually starting in 2006 by moving several thousand high
paying programming jobs abroad. International Business Machines has said it plans to move
up to 3,000 jobs from the United States to developing countries this year. A programmer in
China with three to five years of experience would cost about $12.50 an hour, including
salary and benefits. This is compared to $56 an hour for a comparable US employee said a
current employee familiar with the company's internal billing rates. ]
IBM plans to hire 15,000 new employees this year -- 50 per cent more than originally
planned -- in areas like software and services because of a rebound in the economy. The
company said about 4,500 net jobs will be added in the United States.
Source: The Wall Street Journal 18th
January 2004
Fighting Attrition
The toughest issue for BPO companies today is not competition from
the Philippines or the backlash, but the high attrition rates.
With attrition rates soaring from 30% to 40% at the agent and the managerial levels, all
hell is breaking loose in the BPO industry. Firms are resorting to strategies ranging from
giving various incentives to their employees (housing scheme, low rate loans,
pick-and-drop), attractive catering etc.); having spouses working in the same
organisation; recruiting the non-recruitables (like housewives and senior citizens); and
even signing anti-poaching agreements. BPOs are now trying a fix-all solution for
retaining their trained manpower and create a quality manpower pool that will stick with
the organisation for a longer period of time. Offering structured career paths to
employees seems to be the way out for now.
Source: DATAQUEST January 15th 2004
UK Bank switches call center to India
UK - based Lloyds TSB, the UK's fourth largest bank is shutting down its customer call
center in Newcastle, England resulting in a loss of 986 jobs. The bank plans to recruit
1500 staff by the end of 2004. The move has resulted in sharp criticism by Unify, the
finance sector union calling it a "purely for business profit without a
conscience". The bank hopes to manage reduction of staff by natural turnover, cutting
temporary staff and trying to redeploy employees elsewhere.
Source: www.crimag.com 10th January
2004
Prepared by - Abhimanyu Puri
BBA - MAHE - Level 1
Comments and questions: info@skylinecollege.com
URL: http://www.skylinecollege.com
