ITES - BPO Market

Over the past decade, the Indian BPO segment has witnessed significant transformation. Starting with basic data entry tasks, the industry graduated to a high proportion of voice-based services and a range of back-offi ce processing activities. The last 3-4 years have seen the scope of services expanding to include increasingly complex processes involving rule-based decision making and even research services requiring informed individual judgment.

The rapid expansion in scope of BPO has been accompanied by an equally rapid adoption across a range of vertical industries. This wide range of services may be summarised into four broad categories comprising Finance and Accounting (F&A), Customer Interaction Services (CIS) and Human Resource Administration (HRA), and a wide range of other vertical-specifi c and niche services.

F&A services manage or support aspects of the fi nance and accounting functions of businesses. This includes activities such as general accounting, transaction management (accounts receivables and payables management), corporate fi nance (e.g. treasury and risk management, and tax management); compliance management and statutory reporting, etc. This segment accounts for approximately 40-45 percent of Indian BPO.

CIS includes all forms of IT-enabled customer contact; inbound or outbound, voice or non-voice based support used to provide customer services, sales and marketing, technical support and help desk services.

The HR administration services include payroll and benefi ts administration, travel and expense processing, talent acquisition and talent management services, employee and manager self-service delivery services, employee communication design and administration. This segment accounts for about two percent of Indian BPO.

BPO is witnessing an increasing emphasis on the cost-plus, additional strategic levers that it can deliver include innovation of the underlying business process being outsourced, improved competitive positioning, managing customer expectations, elevation of the strategic role of the retained organisation, optimal resource allocation, support for globalisation of their businesses, and technology support and access. This has also resulted in heightened C-level attention resulting in enterprise-wide evaluation of BPO opportunities – which is in turn opening new avenues to explore.

This steady expansion in scope coupled with low penetration levels is supporting high growth for BPO.