Skyline Business School
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Skyline Business School |
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BPO
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Issue 37
HCL
Comnet is No.1 in BPO infrastructure
HCL Technologies Infrastructure Services Division (HCL Comnet) has been ranked
'No. 1' in a study enlisting 'Top 10 specialty offshore infrastructure service
providers', conducted by CMP Media LLC, a part of United Business media. The
study conducted in association with NeoIT enlists Top 100 global offshore
service providers; further segmenting them based on specialized service
offerings viz. Top 10 best performing BPO providers, Top 10 best performing IT
Services Firms, Top 10 offshore call center firms, and Top 10 specialty offshore
infrastructure service providers.
HCL Technologies claims to be
the first Indian company to be ranked No.1 in the IT Infrastructure services
space, an area predominantly dominated by US majors like IBM and EDS. This is
the fourth consecutive industry accolade received by the organization after
being ranked as leaders by Deutche Bank for Remote Infrastructure management
(17th March 2004), by V&D 100 as a leader in the Network Management and
Security Management services (June 2004) and being ranked as 'Excellent' in META
Group's evaluation of Offshore Outsourcing (October 2004).
Source: www.indiatimes.com, January 14th
Europe
outsourcing capital of the world
US slips into second place for the first time, survey
claims
Europe has overtaken the US as the world's leading market for outsourcing
contracts, a report has claimed. According to the latest Quarterly Index from
outsourcing advisory firm TPI, Europe accounted for just under half of the value
of major outsourcing contracts (those worth over €40m) awarded worldwide in
2004. The US came in second at 44 per cent, with Asia Pacific trailing at just
seven per cent. The €28bn of contracts awarded by European companies last year
is more than double the value in 2002.
Duncan Aitchison, international
managing director at TPI, said: "The equalisation between the European and
US outsourcing markets comes through dramatic growth in Europe, not any
significant decline in outsourcing in the Americas.”
"European companies realise
that they cannot continue to compete effectively on a global scale without
utilising the increased efficiency and flexibility they can gain through
outsourcing."
The report also found that the
value of major outsourcing contracts awarded last year was a record €58bn
worldwide. Over two thirds of this was IT outsourcing and a third business
process outsourcing, whereby companies engage third parties to perform functions
such as finance, accounting, procurement and human resources processing.
Offshoring is a more common
component in business process outsourcing than IT outsourcing contracts, with 76
per cent of major business process outsourcing deals with which TPI was involved
last year entailing at least some offshoring, up by more than a quarter from 56
per cent in 2003.
Source: www.infoworld.com, www.vnunet.com,
January 14th
Philippines
– Issues in the BPO Industry
Call centers are poised for bigger growth this year. But
threats are already starting to emerge for this new industry—from declining
English skills to power crisis
The boom in call centers is one
of the biggest developments in the country’s business landscape last year. A
whole host of industry bodies, government bodies and top level management of
BPOs feel that the sector will continue to witness high growth as more and more
companies outsource their work to the Philippines.
The challenge for call centers
and the Philippine government is to ensure a steady supply of skilled workers
who are proficient in English. Many large call
center heads feel that the decline in English proficiency poses as a very large
threat to the Philippines’ position of being a call center hub. With a
considerable number of Filipinos lacking in English-language skills, call-center
companies are forced to train the applicants, a task that should have been the
responsibility of the educational system.
Moreover, the media must also
promote call-center jobs as a genuine profession
that are excellent training centers for developing English proficiency and
customer-service skills in the specific industry that the call-center agent is
assigned to, while paying very good salaries at the same time.
Another challenge for the
industry is developing technical-support workers, such as network engineers, who
will oversee the backroom or technical aspect of the operations of the call
centers.
Another impending threat is the energy
shortage. Rosalie Montenegro, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT)
senior vice president said this will be a major hindrance to the operations of
call centers, which are geared for a 24/7 work setup. “If we do not address
this, not all the generator sets will allow us to retain US customers who are
looking for reliability and uninterrupted customer service,” she stressed.
“The government has to come up
with a concerted effective means to ensure that the much talked about impending
power failure is mitigated. Otherwise, it will be the kiss of death for the
industry,” she warned.
Source: www.abs-cbnnews.com, January 16th
Hero
Mindmine to venture into Gulf & Asia Pacific
After establishing its position in the domestic market, Hero Mindmine is
planning to venture into overseas market with opening of corporate training
centres in select countries in the Gulf and the Asia Pacific region. The company
is also planning to venture into the US and UK markets for providing its
development and content services and customized training modules. The company's
international business would be a significant contributor to its revenues over
the next five to 10 year period.
The company is in advanced stage
of negotiations with local training companies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand
and China to set up its corporate training centres. "The global learning
outsourcing market provides us with immense opportunities to expand our
business. The success of our venture in India has given us the confidence to
expand our overseas business," said Asheesh Gupta, business head of Hero
Mindmine.
Source: Press Trust of India, January 17th
Wipro
upbeat on process consulting
Wipro Technologies Ltd is bullish on its business and process consulting
practice and is eyeing acquisitions in this space as part of the "String of
pearls acquisition strategy". The Chief Marketing Officer and
Vice-President, Strategic Marketing, Wipro Technologies, Sangita Singh, based in
Mountain View, California, said as large global clients begin to consolidate
operations across locations, they look to a service provider like Wipro to meet
their entire technology requirements. Consequently, the company's consulting
practice, which accounts for about 4 per cent of revenues, is set to expand.
"Our acquisitions have been
extremely strategic starting with Spectramind, Ericsson R&D, AMS in energy
and utilities segment and Nervewire. We continue to scout for strategic
acquisitions that add up to the domain expertise and bring in the local exposure
on board Wipro," she explained. "One has to distinguish the area of
consulting between business consulting and process consulting. Business
consulting is inorganic wherein skill application is also through acquisition of
newer skill sets. On the other hand, process consulting brings in deep insights
into a domain expertise. In our quest to expand the process consulting pie, we
are in direct competition with top three-four consulting firms along with the
other layer of service providers like IBM," she said.
Source: www.sify.com/finance, January 17th
Outsource
risks too much for small fry
Small and medium enterprises say loss of control is the biggest inhibitor to
outsourcing IT services, according to analyst IDC. Most large service providers
target the local SME sector, but outsourcing has not taken off there, the
research finds. IDC business process outsourcing analyst Aprajita Sharma said
vendors faced several challenges in the SME sector. "Vendors have to
understand that the biggest driver is trust and relationships, and that is how
SMEs do business. They don't do business because you have a better
technology," Ms Sharma said.
Ms Sharma said service providers
should educate SMEs to overcome fears about outsourcing. "For vendors
trying to sell to SMEs the thing that's going to work is standardization,"
Ms Sharma said. "It has to be a very standard solution. That is where they
can save costs, and for the vendor that means economies of scale - pushing a
similar product for 10 different companies in one vertical." Hosting,
security and customer relationship management were IT services that could be
outsourced for SMEs.
Source: www.australianit.news.com, January
18th
Mid-size
contracts driving global outsourcing
The global outsourcing sector is increasingly being driven by medium-sized
contracts, particularly in the fast-growing BPO space. According to a study
carried out by analyst firm Datamonitor and outsourcing advisory firm Everest
Group, the combined value of outsourcing deals in 2004 rose by 37 per cent to
$163bn compared to $118.9bn the previous year. IBM Global Services captured the
largest market share at 10.7 per cent, with deals signed in the central
government sector growing 78 per cent during 2004. There were fewer
billion-dollar deals in 2004 than in 2003 (25 versus 29), suggesting that
clients are adopting selective sourcing models, where they outsource specific IT
and back-office functions to specialist outsourcing vendors rather than hand
over their entire IT department to a single supplier. Nick Mayes, lead analyst
for global computing services at Datamonitor, said: "One striking feature
of the services market in 2004 was that the deals were distributed among a
larger number of vendors than in previous years."
Michel Janssen, president of
supplier solutions at Everest Group, added: "We are also seeing the top
tier offshore vendors such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro compete and win in
head-to-head deals against top tier western vendors. And the wins are
increasingly larger in size."
Source: www.tekrati.com, www.techweb.com,
January 18th
Prepared by
Abhimanyu Puri, BBA (MAHE) 2nd year
Skyline Business School
Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi 110 016
Tel: 2686 4848, 2652 4399
www.SkylineCollege.com