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In 2009, most BPO players showed a unique resilience and emerged with innovative business plans, even as they struggled to meet projected growth rate. They realized the need to “diversify beyond core offerings and markets through new business and pricing models, specialize to provide endtransform the process delivery through re research and development and drive inclusive growth in India by developing targeted solutions for the domestic market”, according to the Nasscom BPO report for 2010. BPO and ITeS players have matured to the ext helped it strengthen its leadership position in the global sourcing market. The advent of 2010 has signaled the revival of outsourcing within core markets, even as emerging markets increasingly adopt outsourcing for enhanced competitiveness. The industry is now seeing key demand indicators in the last two quarters such as increased deal flow, volume growth, stable pricing, and faster decision making. This means that companies are on the path of revi negative growth. Nasscom predicts that full recovery is expected in two quarters. A development of new growth levers, improved efficiency and changing demand outlook are the early signs of recovery. The report highlights key points that mark the BPO industry in 2010:

• Growth in BPO is single digit for the first time. However, it still is the fastest growing segment of the industry and is estimated to reach $12.4 billion in FY2010, growing at 6 per cent. Increased acceptance of platfor increasingly focus on transforming client businesses through a mix of re technology enablement, and new service delivery methods. The engineering design and products development segmen per cent of exports revenue, generating total revenues of $10 billion in FY2010, growing by 4.2 per cent.
  
  
• Domestic IT-BPO revenues are expected to grow at almost 8.5 per cent to reach Rs 1,088 billion in FY2010. The key factors that make the domestic market lucrative include the rise of Indian corporations facing competitive market conditions through an increasingly globalized Indian market, increased spend by the government in several e enhanced connectivity and increased levels of IT spending. This is coupled with companies looking to improve competitiveness by adopting global best practices, leverage customized service offerings and new delivery models such as SaaS, whi Domestic IT services is expected to grow by 12 per cent in FY2010. Hardware spend is largely expected to remain flat in FY2010, but an imminent hardware refresh cycle will positively impact revenues next year. The domestic B performances over the past few years, growing by 22 per cent over FY2009, to reach Rs 108 billion, driven by large deals in the telecom and BFSI space. Outsourcing Trends 2010 end-to-end service offerings with deeper penetration across verticals, transform re-engineering and enabling technology, innovate through extent that India now offers a new value proposition that has pt revival and recovery from hat platform BPO solutions is the key, as Indian BPO providers retechnology segments that involve IP driven service capabilities account for 20 e-Governa which ensure greater cost savings. BPO segment has continued its strong ng ent val m -engineering skills, ts Governance initiatives, ch PO
  
  
• India today offers a value proposition because of availability of q effective rates, rapidly developing infrastructure, an enabling innovation environment, supportive regulatory policies, and a positive overall business environment.
  
  
• Availability of skilled talent has been India’s foremost attraction country. The graduate outturn has more than doubled in the past decade, with addition of 3.7 million graduates in FY2010, a scale unmatched by any other country. While some gaps in talent suitability exist, they are being addressed thr and industry-led programmes.
  
  
• The industry has been extremely quality focused, with India based centres accounting for the largest number of quality certifications achieved by any countryThe industry has also set standards in the establishment and maintenance of best practices in corporate governance, and leads in customer satisfaction.
  
  
• The industry has been enhancing its abilities to transform client businesses through increased R&D spend, focus on IP creation, process and business model innovation and increased domain expertise. 7. Increased focus on global delivery has required the industry to enhance its global footprint, which has in turn helped the industry reach o services. Over the last two years, there has been a 32 per cent increase in the number of global delivery centres with outreach expanding to 12 new countries.
  
  
• The industry has played its part in empowering a diver of employment in the age group 18 backward people, over 30 per cent of total employee base are women, 60 percent of companies offer employment to differently employment are originally from Tier
  
  
• Business process outsourcing spending in 2010 is expected to be increasingly driven by F&A segment and procurement, followed by HR outsourcing. Providers will increase their on developing platform BPO solutions across verticals and services.

The industry has played a key role in enhancing the brand image of India, by accounting for more than 10 per cent of total FDI in the last decade, over 200 cross and establishment of over 900 MNC captives in the last decade.
quality talent at cost as a global sourcing through strong provider dards development of new technologies incorporating out to new customer segments and offer new diverse set of human assets 18-25 yrs, 4 per cent of employment for economically differently-abled people, while 58 per cent of total Tier-II/III cities.

Cross-border acquisitions between FY2005
quality costeffective ough provider-level initiatives ut se - 30 per cent e, focus s FY2005-FY2009,

KPO - What is it?

'Outsourcing' is no longer just about low-skill jobs and call centers. The next big wave involves the outsourcing of high-skilled or 'knowledge' jobs such as accountants, lawyers, engineers and doctors to foreign countries. Knowledge Process Outsourcing, or KPO, is expected to grow faster over the next six years than Business Process Outsourcing, or BPO.

According to a CII study, India would soon become the most preferred destination for KPOs as it grows 46 per cent to touch 17 billion dollars by 2010.

Span of KPOs

Examples of KPO would include a law firm outsourcing basic case research to paralegals in a foreign country or pharmaceutical firms conducting R&D for new drugs in offshore facilities

Knowledge Process Outsourcing covers the following streams:

• Pharmaceuticals
• Biotechnology
• ICT
• Legal services
• Intellectual property
• Research and design
• Development of automotive and aerospace industries

How clients and vendors benefit?

For clients, outsourcing knowledge-based work could mean significant cost-cutting.

While an American MBA graduate earns $85,000 a year to start with, a mere $12,000 would suffice for his Indian counterpart. A Ph.D in the US could earn something close to $80,000 annually while an Indian Ph.D earns just about $16,000 per annum.

The maximum share of value creation goes to clients. Quality will always be on check as the people working on it are trained professionals. Vendors can assure the US client of a 24X7 work cycle due to the 12-hour time difference between the US and India.

Who can benefit

In its annual publication Strategic Review 2005, Nasscom has said the high-end activity of knowledge process outsourcing could be worth $15.5 billion by 2010. There's tremendous scope for those with specializations in sciences, applied sciences and health care. Biotech graduates and professionals in data search and management will be in demand.

BPO vs. KPO

While a BPO job is entirely governed by rules, a KPO job demands human discretion, judgments and clarity in client relationships and decision making. While BPO providers specialize in managing repetitive and transactional chores like payroll and accounts, KPO covers services such as intellectual property, legal and medical research, Pharma, biotechnology-related research and process outsourcing. Billing rates for KPO are higher at $30-45 per hour compared to just $10-14 in the BPO business.