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In
a cover story of Business Week Online
of February 3, 2003, it was said emphatically that now
knowledge work can be done almost anywhere. The driving
forces were identified as digitization, the Internet,
and high-speed data networks. The article mentioned
well-known organizations like Bank of America, Texas
Instruments, HSBC Securities, Siemens, Intel Inc., Philips,
Microsoft, Lehman Brothers, Bear, Stearns & Co.,
Hewlett-Packard Co., General Electric, Proctor &
Gamble, Fluor Corp., AmEx, and Citibank as companies
that have already outsourced high-end knowledge jobs.
The article argued that this outsourcing would be beneficial
to the developing world and also in all likelihood would
be beneficial to the US.
Three
years down the line, we can see a rapid evolution of
this knowledge industry. It is presently termed as Knowledge
Process Outsourcing (KPO). Evalueserve, an organization
actively involved in this segment came out with a detailed
report on outsourcing demand from the US and the UK.
According to this report prepared for the period 2003-10,
the world outsourcing in KPO business is expected to
be $17 bn by 2010 with a compounded annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 46%. In comparison, the BPO will have revenues
of $40 bn and IT will have $57 bn. The growth rates
in BPO and IT are going to be 26% CAGR only. India is
the most preferred destination for KPO jobs and it is
predicted that 70% of the global knowledge process outsourcing
will be done from India. Thus, the market opportunity
it firms up in India is $12 bn. It means employment
to 250,000 persons of higher education. |
