The Hindu Business Line : Will the voice do?

Speech-enabled software solutions are hovering threateningly on the horizon. eWorld takes a look at the perils and opportunities in the playfield, and what the Indian ITES sector must do to safeguard its interests.

SAY boom, say BPO. That's the kind of growth business process outsourcing has been enjoying.

And the prospects for the IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) sectors are only set to get better.

A Nasscom-McKinsey report estimates that the industry as a whole will create over four million jobs by 2008, with IT services and IT-enabled services contributing about a million each, and the support services industry creating another two million jobs.

In ITES exports alone, some of the segments creating the greatest number of jobs will be customer care — contributing 370,000 to 390,000 jobs, HR — contributing 140,000 to 160,000 jobs, and administration, accounting for roughly 80,000-100,000 jobs.

So far, the industry has lived up to expectations, with various BPO companies announcing plans to ramp up operations in India and new players setting up operations in the country to capitalise on the human resource skills and drive down costs. But will this phenomenon be short-lived?

Note of caution

A recent report by market analyst Datamonitor has noted that offshore call centre agents are set to face competition from speech-enabled self-service technology.

It is Datamonitor's view that in a call centre, where 95 per cent of communication occurs over the phone, speech automation will present a viable long-term alternative to offshore call centre agents. When compared to a call centre in one's own market, a call centre in an offshore location, such as India, saves a US company approximately 25 per cent to 35 per cent, per transaction.

However, a call serviced through speech automation costs approximately 15 per cent to 25 per cent of the cost of a call handled by an agent in India.

Thus, businesses that already have offshore call centres can look to drive greater cost savings by implementing speech-enabled self-service solutions.

Moreover, companies that are looking to expand offshore may find more overall value by staying onshore and implementing a speech self-service solution.

Now where does that leave our projections for an ambitious growth roadmap?

Are the call centre agents in India or those eyeing employment in BPO companies in danger of losing their seats to rapid advance in technology?

Pros and cons

The Indian industry seems confident that the technology will have no impact on its future plans.

"The Indian industry, especially the larger players, will not be impacted. This is because while some of the low-end work, including information such as balance and outstanding, can be addressed through speech-enabled technology, there is no way that problem-solving functions can get automated.

So, those customer services that involve decision-making will continue to be handled by agents at any point," says Raman Roy, President and CEO, Wipro Spectramind.

This includes work such as technical helpdesk and complex financial services queries, and the retail helpdesk.

As much as 95 per cent of services provided by Wipro Spectramind are high-end in nature and hence there is no threat to its business, Roy says.

He, however, admits that smaller players handling low-end services could be affected because of speech-enabled solutions. "ITES companies that handle functions such as providing information about the Railway timetable, or balance enquiry etc, can face competition.

But remember it is not a new technology, and it is extremely expensive. Therefore, it may not be a viable solution for small companies employing 100-150 agents," he says.

"I see an opportunity for India even when it comes to these speech-enabled, self-service solutions. If the small companies undergo consolidation, they may be able to afford these solutions and further drive down costs for their clients," Roy says.

For instance, smaller players can consolidate several platforms for a specific voice-enabled solution into a single one so that many customers can be serviced on that single platform.

According to Pramod Bhasin, CEO of Gecis, India's share in the global BPO market is still marginal and hence there is enough room for the industry to grow alongside speech automation technologies.

"Automation can be introduced for limited functions such as frequently asked questions (FAQs), or functions such as credit card information.

But it cannot perform complicated work," Bhasin says. GE, for that matter, has been using speech automation to enhance efficiency and productivity, he says, but maintains that human interaction can never be eliminated.

Rohit Arora, Chairman of eMR Technology Ventures, a BPO company that has chalked out plans to more than treble its headcount to 2,500 professionals over the next two years, agrees.

"We are not operating on the voice side, so there is no implication for the company. But even from an industry point of view, we are far from a situation where a significant portion of calls can be handled by an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system.

If there is a call to book movie tickets or seek information on the airline schedule or a bank account, the IVR can be an effective tool.

But how does one automate collection calls that involve a greater degree of interaction with customers? How can sales calls be concluded successfully through an IVR?" he quips.

Debashish Das, Vice-President (HR and training) of Keane Worldzen, feels speech automation could have fitted well in the BPO scenario four years ago, when the Indian industry was nascent.

"Today, the industry has moved up the value chain and the complexity of interaction has gone up significantly. Even in inbound calls, speech-enabled technology will have a limited role to play," he says.

On the solutions available in the market, he says most large companies that offer switch-based solutions, such as Avaya, Nortel and Cisco, have some form of an IVR offering. In addition, Indian companies such as Servion, Prasec Technologies, Network Program and 3D network also provide solutions to offshore call centre companies.

The Nasscom President, Kiran Karnik, draws attention to the social aspects of full automation in call centres. "It is well established now that the social experience of customers is less satisfactory when talking to a machine."

While the new voice technologies pose a challenge, they come with their own set of complexities, he says. His advice to the BPO industry: Constantly move up the value chain to complex business processes in order to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology.

However, Debashish Das feels it is difficult to generalise and say that the level of satisfaction is less for a customer when interacting with an IVR. The level of satisfaction depends largely on the response time taken by the software to address a query, he says, and not so much on the voice neutrality of an automated solution.

Some responses, he says, are well-structured, but if there is a complex query, the customer may not like to hold on indefinitely (to check his account balance for instance) while the software digs the database for a solution.

Whatever be the shape of technology to come, the Indian ITES sector had better climb up the value ladder faster and stay at least three steps ahead of evolving technologies to stay wanted.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

moumita@thehindu.co.in

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