The offshore BPO industry is in the midst of a gradual (some might argue more rapid) transformation from delivering low-to-moderate value services and results for commensurate costs and returns to serving as the process equivalent (or better) for in-house functions in Global 2000 companies. A recent column in India’s Financial Express highlights this emerging evolution of the BPO market as well as offering a perspective on how procurement BPO might change as part of this migration to higher-value areas. Overall, the future of BPO growth is bright indeed, and despite the “Uncertainty” of the current economy, “the industry view is that double digit growth will still happen and the estimate that the addressable global market for BPO will grow from $200 billion today to over $900 billion by 2020.” For the same period, the “optimistic view” holds that “Indian BPO revenues can grow nearly fourfold to a $50 billion level in the same period.”
The column goes on to argue that in the coming decade, it will be critical for “offshore leaders” to demonstrate three key capabilities: business savvy, process expertise and “optimization through judicious deployment of technology to improve overall productivity of horizontal and vertical processes.” As an example, the author turns to procurement as a BPO area, suggesting that, “To put this into perspective, a company which takes over the procurement process of a large diversified manufacturing firm will have to discuss business metrics for sourcing, purchasing and payment sub processes, show an intimate knowledge of the critical success factors for each stage and be aware of all technology solutions feasible to automate and transform the process for better business efficiency.”
