The fundamentals of cost advantages might not continue to favor Indian BPOs. So, to remain competitive, Indian BPOs will have to adopt a Global Delivery Model to maximize quality while leveraging cost advantages.

India's Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is losing its com-petitive advantage amidst high attrition, poor infrastructure, price wars, regulatory tangle and increasing commoditization of services. Then there is also the factor of other countries emerging as hot BPO destinations. It has become very difficult to manage growth on the available infrastructure, while remaining cost competitive. Clients are looking for more value-added services. It has also become inevitable to get rid of the `commodity trap' by increasing value-added services.

According to the Nasscom, the present employee turnover rate in the Indian BPO market is 45-50% for voice-based processes and 15-20% for non- voice-based processes. There are many reasons for attrition: Decreasing salaries and bonuses, the huge mismatch between expectation and qualification are some of them. BPOs are unable to manage employees' aspirations well and employees are fed up with unremitting inbound calls. They have to respond to calls using pseudo identities. They are merely treated as call machines, which creates employee dissatisfaction. Often employees may also have to travel distances to reach their work places and work at odd hours. Such odd working hours affect their biological systems. BPO employees also perceive lack of long-term growth prospects, namely in the captive operation. Against this, managing growth on the grounds of cost advantage has become a strenuous task. To remain competitive in the global BPO arena, Indian BPOs are looking to move up the value chain by developing a global delivery model and through consolidation.

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