Not the great rollback, but BPOs losing big business

Hindustan Times ^ | June 8, 2005 | Prerna K Mishra

[ulmo3]

Not the great rollback, but BPOs losing big business

With companies across the world spending more and more of their IT budgets towards engineering and automation processes, Indian BPOs are feeling the heat.

A few months ago, Daksh eServices lost some of the business from Sprint Corp after Big Blue (incidentally, Daksh’s parent company) automated the processes for the long distance major doing away with the need to outsource them to India.

Raman Roy, CEO, Wipro Spectramind, admits that there has been some reversal in the BPO space. “But that is happening because of two reasons: in the low-end of business (where automation is easier), or because of poor capacity and capabilities of Indian partners in implementing projects, which is a performance issue.”

The larger Indian players have already geared up to face the challenges of automation. Progeon CEO Akashay Bhargava says: “Any BPO worth its salt today offers re-engineering services as a value proposition in its sale offering. If clients are automating, prudent players would seize the opportunity to do it themselves than allow a third party to cannabalise the business. So automation, if anything, is a greater opportunity for us.”

Nasscom president Kiran Karnik also doesn’t look at automation as a threat. “It is well established now that the social experience of customers is less satisfactory when talking to a machine.”

[ulmo3]

I was wondering when this would start and I think this trend will continue. You will soon have most companies automating most of these services. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just something which is inevitable. Smart companies/employees will start moving up the value chain and offer less telemarketing and more value added service. Otherwise they will shut down loose their jobs etc.

[DCPatriot]

Please get the spelling corrected in the title...he suggested sheepishly. ;^)

[Sidebar Moderator]

Please always use the original published title. Thanks.

[proxy_user]

Cut and paste of original title:

Not the great rollback, but BPOs losing big business

Looks right to me.

[Sidebar Moderator]

"...Looks right to me."

That is because it was corrected, Proxy_User.

[proxy_user]

Ooops, didn't realize. My apologies.

[theFIRMbss]

>This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just something which is inevitable

Just because something
is "inevitable," that
doesn't mean the thing

isn't good or bad.
Cancer inevitably
will kill some number

of people we love.
It's inevitable, but
it's still rational

to label it bad
and try to fight against it.
We're conservatives --

that means we value
good things from the past, and don't
blindly embrace change

just because "it's here."
Refusing to label things
is mental blindness.

[Sidebar Moderator]

Okay. Thanks.

[ulmo3]

sorry problems with cut and paste :)

[ulmo3]

I did I just did a copy and page and I guess I didnt copy the entire title my mistake

[ulmo3]

Oops I guess I did not use the original title and it was corrected. Sorry I guess I need some coffee to wake up

[ulmo3]

Labeling things blindly can cause mental blindness too, because you assign an label to someone as a conservative doesnt mean he is conservative in everything is he.

People are usually conservative about something and then on the other side with other things.

So with most things which you label bad or good, it depends on from whose point of view you are looking at

[theFIRMbss]

>This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just something which is inevitable
>>Cancer inevitably/will kill some number/of people we love./It's inevitable, but/it's still rational//to label it bad
>>Labeling things blindly can cause mental blindness too ... So with most things which you label bad or good, it depends on from whose point of view you are looking at

[ulmo3]

Oh dont be so hard on yourself, I dont think you are an ass :)