Consider this - Indian tutors helping out foreign students in completing their homework, Indian doctors offering their advice to foreign patients, subject experts developing content for online papers, magazines, portals, etc., lawyers drafting legal documents for US clients, and all this being carried out from India itself! This is not a wild imagination of some fertile mind at work but very much a reality. Welcome to the world of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO)! India is gradually moving up its value chain from being a low-end services provider to a high-end knowledge services provider. The country is now ranked as the most preferred KPO destination thanks to its large talent pool, quality IT training, amiable government policies and low labor costs.
Multinational companies outsource their non-core processes to other experts so that they could focus more on their core competencies. India's excellence in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is a fact known the world over and the country has proved to be one of the most significant destinations for global companies to outsource their back office operations. However, of late, the country is proving to be a hot destination for the outsourcing of knowledge processes like analytical and research functions. The huge success India has achieved in handling outsourced business processes has indeed added to its advantage in managing high-end processes too. While the cost factor was the raison d'etre for India attracting low-end services, it's the vast pool of quality knowledge workers available in the country that is appealing the foreign companies to outsource their all important knowledge-based core activities.
According to NASSCOM, India's BPO industry will soon be edged out by the emerging KPO sector as the biggest revenue grosser. India is witnessing a strategic shift from BPO to KPO, which certainly is something to cheer about. It implies that India is now perceived as a high-end services provider. The country was hitherto sought after for outsourcing of low-end back office operations like telemarketing, but it is now emerging as the hub for the outsourcing of knowledge services as well. According to CII, the global KPO market would grow at a CAGR of 45% to reach a whopping $17 bn by 2010, with India's share being almost 70% or $12 bn in value terms. Comparatively, the BPO industry is estimated to have a CAGR of 26%.
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