The Hindu Business Line : Now, foreign cos looking at India for complex jobs

Chennai April 6 While IT and BPO businesses have made India the world's back office, non-IT businesses are now paving the way to make India the world's think tank.

Foreign firms are increasingly looking at non-IT companies in India to do some of their complex and core business processes.

UnitedLex Corporation based in India is a legal counsel for many fortune 500 companies.

It works on commercialising patents filed by its clients at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). "There is an acute shortage of professionals in the US to handle high volume complex work such as patent analysis and business analytics," says Mr Ajay Agrawal, Chief Solutions Officer, UnitedLex.

That patent filings have grown manifold (3.75 lakh patents were filed at the USPTO in June 2005) while the intellectual property (IP) departments of companies have not, makes it necessary for companies to outsource such work, he says.

UnitedLex devises licensing policies for clients, besides handling patent litigation. It started offering contract management services about a year ago and today drafts, negotiates and closes dealer contracts for a Fortune 10 client.

Designing

Tesco Hindustan Service Centre (HSC) started as an Indian back office to the UK-based retailer.

Today, it designs almost all Tesco stores in the UK with its team of 35 architects and engineers. Aspects such as customer purchase pattern, store segmentation, retail planning, furniture, ambience and wall colours are considered before coming out with a store drawing.

The drawing is then contracted to local construction companies in the UK who build the store.

"India has a unique talent mix of architects and engineers who can optimise investment and space. We have been able to reduce store construction time by 15 days. For a retailer this means 15 more days of business," says Mr Rajesh Sehrawat, Head of Business Services, Tesco HSC.

Through the last year and a half, the Centre has designed over 100 stores across three formats--Metro (10,000 sq ft), Super (30,000-60,000 sq ft) and Extra (80,000-1 lakh sq ft) and is now looking at the 3,000 sq ft format.

Designing a logo for an Indian restaurant planning a US launch is what led advertising company Brand Portrait to start making ads for US companies. "Foreign companies want to tap the Indian market by making ads that Indians can relate to. This is where we fit in," says Mr Venu Gopal Nair, Director of the company.

Indian companies are increasingly handling all aspects of advertising such as production, post- production and distribution. For instance, the recent Nike ad featuring a cricket match played atop bus roofs in a traffic jam was almost entirely done by an Indian ad agency. "Ad design was always done by the US company. But now we are seeing enquiries for creatives and design to be done in India," says Mr Nair.

Unlike costs being the primary driver for IT-based outsourcing, it is the availability of skills that is driving non-IT outsourcing. Though, cost savings in outsourcing non-IT processes are comparable to that in IT/BPO businesses, non-IT business opportunities remain largely untapped by Indian companies.

For instance, India has tapped less than one per cent of the over $13.5 billion legal outsourcing business that includes patent prosecution, litigation support, immigration support and contract management. The Indian ad spend market is estimated at $2 billion while the US market that Indian companies can target is estimated at $200 billion.

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