Challenges before BPOs in India

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In the domain of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), the countries competing with India are Mexico, Philippines, Malaysia, China, and Canada. These countries have obviously placed several challenges before BPOs in India. The challenges that India faces from these countries include availability of workers who are more skilled and educated.

   
BPOs in India are also facing challenges since the competing countries have several advantages over India. It's not that India cannot or does not provide these advantages but it's sufficient to say that these amenities in India are still at a nascent stage. These include:
  • Infrastructure for providing good telecom facilities
  • Finding workers who are aware of the American culture
  • Setting up new service lines
  • Improving operating processes
  • Further cost reduction
The workers in Philippines are more conversant with foreign languages like Spanish, German, French, and Japanese and are used to the American culture too. It is also a challenge for India to continue maintaining its talented task force in the BPO sector because it is facing competition with China in this area. The good news, however, is that not all Chinese workers can speak English as fluently as Indians can.

Challenges before BPOs in India include possibility of a backlash from European and North American markets which are posing a great threat to the Indian BPO industry. India is looking forward to take up huge offshoring ventures but it's difficult to set up the infrastructural requirements for this. The other reason behind the slowing down of offshoring in India is due to the political reasons concerning markets of Europe and North America.

In 2004, many jobs were lost in the offshoring venture due to these reasons. India is faced by the challenge to provide secure and quality offshore services. The services include power and cafeteria services which are important for facilitating employee well-being.

As already mentioned above, India is facing difficulties in finding skilled workers for BPO jobs and statistics of 2004 show that out of all the students graduating in India, only the following are suitable for BPO jobs:

  • 25% of technical graduates
  • 10-15% of non-technical graduates
The challenges before BPOs in India are increasing rapidly but that could be the motivating factor for India. BPOs in India need to improve the workforce by emphasizing areas such as foreign languages as well as streamlining operational procedures.