The Hindu Business Line : BPOs move to smaller towns to cut attrition rates

THE business process outsourcing (BPO) sector is projected to grow to $5.1 billion this year up from $3.6 billion in 2003-04 as per the estimates of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

It is, however, faced with issues of high levels of attrition, often calibrated in months, forcing companies to take to innovative steps to retain people, including the choice of centres and flexibility in recruitment.

Given the steady flow of employable talent, the industry is not headed to a demand-supply crunch as yet. However, there are trends that point towards certain centres becoming important for some skills sets. While the focus was on large cities initially, with the telecom infrastructure growing beyond these cities, tier-II centres and non-traditional centres are in business now.

Companies such as HSBC Data Processing have innovatively looked to tapping the potential even in tier-II cities, by possibly hiring slightly older people and educated women, as they have better chances of sticking to the job, thereby addressing retention issue too. If Wipro Spectramind's comments on BPO are any indication, the industry is hard-pressed to retain talent thereby raising training costs. As opposed to attrition of about 15-20 per cent in services, this is about 40-50 per cent in BPO sector. One way of addressing this is taking the job to the city where they can find talent, therefore, companies are locating offices across multiple centres.

The Chief Executive Officer of CMC, Mr Ramanan, during his recent visit to Hyderabad told Business Line that while there is a direct co-relation between the education institutions and specialised skills in a city, the growth of the technology industry and location of centres is a combination of factors including infrastructure. Therefore, while the growth has been in large cities traditionally, it has now expanded to tier-II cities, he said.

During a recent visit to Hyderabad, the Nasscom President, Mr Kiran Karnik, said that while the industry continues to grow at 30-32 per cent this year, it would need to watch out for HR-related issues and infrastructure, the latter showing signs of strain in major cities.

The Chief Executive Officer of TVA Holdings, Mr Rakesh Kaul, said, "The best way to address this business is to consolidate its existing operations in the centre of choice. We believe the Pune belt is suitable for voice-based services."

According to Mr Uday Kulkarni, Senior Vice-President, Manpower Solutions, Aptech, "The choice of a location seems to be based on availability of infrastructure, pool of skilled manpower, the political stability and the labour relations climate of the area. To meet the rapidly growing requirements, the industry has started looking at other options such as middle-aged employees, housewives and moving into the interiors for sourcing the candidates. Undergraduates are being offered scholarships for their graduation from various institutes."

"The industry while redefining the psychological profile, is talking of evolving common standards and tests for employment. The single most important talent that is looked at while recruiting at call centre will be fluency in English and neutral accent," Mr Kulkarni said.

The Co-Founder and President of Congruent Solutions, Mr Bala J. Raman, said, "BPO is a fairly loosely-used term calling for specific set of skills. We need specialised skill set and fine-tune them with training and certification. But basic competency in maths and accounting are a must. These days, there are the Actuarial Sciences graduates who are a good fit too. One very strong attribute of Chennai people is their work ethics and the high number of educational institutes in the State."

The Co-Founder, Secova eServices, Mr V. Chandrasekaran, said, "The first wave of the BPO industry in India has been on customer care segment. The next wave, which promises to be an even bigger opportunity, is said to be on value-added services in specific areas that require domain specialisation.."

Ms Jyothi Menon, Head, Human resources, Lason India, which has about 5,000 people, said, "Choosing a particular destination or a location is not only for the skill set but for other factors such as infrastructure to support conditions to attract global players."

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Maxtor opens regional office in Mumbai

i-flex Solutions third-quarter net up 33 pc

Datamatics Q3 net climbs 49 pc

Nihilent forays into CMMI consulting

Wipro launches operations at Kochi facility

Hughes Soft name change okayed

Fortinet expands product portfolio

BPOs move to smaller towns to cut attrition rates

Adea Solutions unit to hire more

GrapeCity ties up with Seapine Soft

Overseas centres on Mercury's radar