The Hindu Business Line : `Software services, BPO need different biz models'

SIZE, scale and sophistication in software services may not straightaway confer advantages to software companies to carry their success to the business process outsourcing (BPO) arena.

The business models for delivering software and BPO services are different. This was the broad thrust of the panel discussion at Nasscom 2004 on "Challenges to BPO business in India."

According to Mr Neeraj Bhargava, Group CEO,WNS Global Services, "The size and sophistication in software services may not necessarily help them in running a BPO operation." The pure play business process outsourcing (BPO) companies have a better understanding of verticals in which they operate and deeper customer relationships.

Reiterating this point, Mr Raju Bhatnagar, Chief Operating Officer, ICICI Onesource, said that software companies attempting to `force fit' their software business model to BPO can prove to be a disaster.

The process and service level agreements in BPO are much more stringent and also quite different between these services.

Quite a few multinationals who have outsourced to India have consciously chosen separate vendors for BPO and software services, says Mr Vikram Talwar, Founder CEO, Exl Service Inc.

By keeping them separate, the possibilities of improving capability in specific verticals and enhancing process capability is much greater, he added.

Mr Roy Sinai, Chief Operating Officer, MsourcE, the MphasiS BPO services, chose to differ. As the only member of the panel with a finger in both the software and BPO pies, he said that using software and technology, superior productivity gains could be delivered to the client.

In his view, integrating software and BPO services was feasible and some companies were uniquely positioned to capitalise on this model.