Business process outsourcing to India

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Business process outsourcing to India refers to the business process outsourcing services in the outsourcing industry in India, catering mainly to Western operations of multinational corporations (MNCs).

Contents

As of 2012, India’s outsourcing industry employed around 2.8 million people and generated approximately US$11 billion in annual revenue, contributing about 1% to GDP. [1] As of 2021, revenue of Indian BPO industry was estimated at US$ 38 billion. [2] The Government of India launched the India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS) under the Digital India initiative to encourage job creation in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. [3] [4] [5] India's BPO Industry handles 56% of the world's business process outsourcing.

History

A BPO hub in DLF Cyber City in Gurgaon, India Gurgaon CyberHub.jpg
A BPO hub in DLF Cyber City in Gurgaon, India

Amex

In the second half of the 1980s, American Express consolidated its JAPAC (Japan and Asia Pacific) back office operations into Gurgaon region. [6]

General Electric

In the 1990s, General Electric launched back-office operations in Gurgaon under Pramod Bhasin, with Raman Roy leading the initiative. This operation, known as GE Capital International Services (GECIS), pioneered voice-based outsourcing from India before being spun off as Genpact in 2004. [7] Raman for the first time tried out voice operations out of India. The operations in India were the Beta site for the GE Six sigma enterprise, as well. The results made GE ramp up their Indian presence and look at other locations. [8]

In 2004 GECIS was spun off as a separate legal entity by GE, called Genpact. GE has retained a 40% stake and sold a 60% stake for $500 million to two equity companies, Oak Hill Capital Partners and General Atlantic Partners.

IT: The headquarters of Infosys, India's third largest IT company, is located in Bengaluru Infosys India.JPG
IT: The headquarters of Infosys, India's third largest IT company, is located in Bengaluru

Size of the industry

The Indian ITES-BPO sector grew by approximately 38.5 % in 2005, reaching revenues of US$7.2 billion with a workforce of about 415,000 employees. [9] The global BPO Industry is estimated to be worth 120–150 billion dollars, of this the offshore BPO is estimated to be some US$11.4 billion. India thus commands about 63% of the global offshore BPO market, while accounting for only 5–6% of the total global BPO industry. [10] The U.S. $7.2 billion also represents some 20% of the IT and BPO Industry which is in total expected to have revenues worth US$36 billion for 2006. By FY 2006, the ITES-BPO segment employed about 415,000 people, representing roughly 40% of the total Indian IT-ITeS workforce, which had surpassed 1 million employees in FY 2005. [11] [12]

A supporting ecosystem has emerged around BPO operations, including facility management, corporate transportation, catering, and outsourced security services, particularly for large office complexes housing BPO centers.

Registration of BPO as OSP

BPO, call centres, KPO, and other IT-enabled services that use telecom resources are regulated as Other Service Providers (OSP) under India’s Department of Telecommunications framework. [13]

Under India’s OSP (Other Service Provider) regime, Application Services include tele-banking, tele-medicine, tele-education, tele-trading, e-commerce, call centres, network operation centres, and other IT enabled services, provided by using telecom resources supplied by authorized telecom service providers. [14] The "Telecom Resource" means telecom facilities used by the OSP including, but not limited to, the Public Switched Telecom Network (PSTN), Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), and/or the telecom bandwidth provided by authorized telecom service providers licensed under the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. [15] In earlier guidelines, the DoT defined “Company” as an Indian company registered under the Indian Companies Act or a partnership firm or entity under Shops and Establishments Act. [16] Domestic OSP referred to an OSP providing application services to clients within India, and International OSP referred to those providing services beyond India’s national boundaries. [17] Under more recent revisions, however, the distinction between domestic and international OSP classifications has been removed altogether. [18]

General conditions of OSP registration

(1) Registration may be granted to any company to provide Application Services, provided they do not infringe on the jurisdiction of other authorised Telecom Service Providers and do not provide switched telephony. (2) Entities entitled for OSP registration must be companies registered under the Indian Companies Act, 1956. [19] (3) Companies may apply for registration to the Authority in the proforma prescribed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) from time to time. [20]

Online system for OSP registration

It is mandatory to get new Registration Number allotted by the Online OSP Registration system for the existing OSP Registrations. In case you have existing registered OSP sites for which you would like to get the new Registration Number from the system please contact Assistant Director General (ADG) of the concerned Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring Cell (TERM Cell) [21] preferably before applying for the login-id from the system.

Tier I cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, NCR, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Pune have long been considered the leading IT and outsourcing hubs of India. [22]

Due to rising infrastructure and real-estate costs in Tier I cities, many BPO providers have expanded into Tier II cities including Nashik, Sangli, Aurangabad, Mangalore, Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Trichy, Calicut, Kochi, Trivandrum, Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Visakhapatnam, Raipur, and Lucknow. [23] Jammu and Kashmir have also recently emerged as new hubs for outsourcing. [24]

Tier II cities offer lower operational costs compared to Tier I cities but face challenges with infrastructure reliability, which can affect large-scale operations. [25] The Government of India, through initiatives such as Digital India and the India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS), has partnered with private infrastructure providers to improve facilities and encourage BPO expansion into smaller cities. [26]

Criticisms

The BPO industry in India has attracted criticism from some observers.

See also

General

Large BPO parks

Economy

References

  1. "India's outsourcing revenue to hit $50 bn". Financial Express. 2008.
  2. "Govt BPO promotion scheme provides employment to over 40,000 local youths in tier 2-3 cities: STPI".
  3. "Govt BPO promotion scheme provides employment to over 40,000 local youths in tier 2-3 cities: STPI". Financial Express. Indian Express Group. 2021.
  4. "Andhra Pradesh leads in job creation under Centre's BPO scheme". Times of India. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 2021.
  5. "Visakhapatnam-based firm gets 5,000 seats under IBPS". Times of India. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 2017.
  6. Amex Phone and Address listings
  7. Bhasin, Pramod (1 June 2011). "How I Did It: Genpact's CEO on Building an Industry in India from Scratch". Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Publishing. ISSN   0017-8012 . Retrieved 4 April 2022.
  8. Yesudian, Suseela (2012). Innovation in India: The Future of Offshoring. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.
  9. "Genpact, India's top BPO employer". Rediff.com. Rediff India Limited. 15 November 2006.
  10. "India's BPO summit spotlights AI, industry growth". Outsource Accelerator News. Outsource Accelerator. 5 September 2023.
  11. "IT sector employee base tops 1 million". Rediff.com. Rediff India Limited. 2 June 2005.
  12. "India's top 15 BPO firms". Rediff.com. Rediff India Limited. June 2006.
  13. "Registration Under Other Service Providers (OSP) Category". Department of Telecommunications, Government of India.
  14. "Definition of Other Service Provider (OSP) and Application Services" (PDF). Telecom Regulatory Authority of India / Government of India.
  15. "OSP-CS: Other Service Provider – Definitions and Guidelines" (PDF). Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. 3 November 2016.
  16. Department of Telecommunications (5 November 2020). "Guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs)" (PDF). Government Guideline. Department of Telecommunications, Government of India.
  17. Department of Telecommunications (23 June 2021). "Revised Guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs)" (PDF). Government Guideline. Department of Telecommunications, Government of India.
  18. PwC India (9 November 2020). "Liberalisation of OSP Guidelines" (PDF). Regulatory Insights. PwC India.
  19. Department of Telecommunications (5 November 2020). "Guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs)" (PDF). Government Guideline. Department of Telecommunications, Government of India.
  20. Department of Telecommunications (23 June 2021). "Revised Guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs)" (PDF). Government Guideline. Department of Telecommunications, Government of India.
  21. Archived 15 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  22. NASSCOM (2019). "The IT-BPM Sector in India". Industry Report.
  23. Anand, Geeta (12 June 2012). "India's Outsourcing Firms Expand to Smaller Cities". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company.
  24. Peerzada, Ashiq (22 February 2014). "BPOs turn to Kashmir as next outsourcing hub". Hindustan Times. HT Media.
  25. Sinha, Payal (18 August 2017). "Tier II cities gain traction for IT-BPO expansion". The Times Group.
  26. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) (2021). "India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS)". Government Program Page. Government of India.
  27. Nadeem, Shehzad (2011). Dead Ringers: How Outsourcing is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves. Princeton University Press.
  28. Nadeem, Shehzad (2011). Dead Ringers:How Outsourcing is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves, Princeton University Press, New Jersey. ISBN   0691147876.
  29. Saraswati, Jyoti (2012). Dot.compradors: Power and Policy in the Development of the Indian Software Industry. Pluto Press.

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