Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

With the claws of recession sprouting across the globe, the BPO companies are making every possible endeavor to optimize their costs and increase productivity. Also, considering the present situation, where most of the developed economies are lurching because of the financial crisis, India needs to bank upon well-built composition and alternatives to take the growth to the next level.

The department of telecom (DoT) has recently come out with the memorandum to introduce the concept of work-from-home agents in India. The concept has been introduced for companies registered under Other Service Providers (OSPs), which include some call centers, network operation centers, tele-marketing, tele-education, tele-medicine and tele-trading.

It could act as a catalyst to reduce the overall cost and to bridge the rural-urban divide in the country. However, the cost effectiveness of home networking depends upon various factors such as impact of home working on freeing up office space, cost of equipment including telephony implications, the level of technical support, training and assistance facilities, clear government guidelines and appropriate HR policies to maintain the professional growth of the employee.

According to a Nasscom-Everest India BPO Survey, BPO is the fastest growing segment of the overall offshore market and is currently estimated at $26-29 bn. Also, it further predicted a total export BPO market opportunity of $220-280 bn by 2012. However to leverage these opportunities, the country needs to focus on tier-2/3 cities to maintain the low cost operations.

As there are a number of offshore BPO destinations like the Philippines, China, Eastern Europe, etc, which are catching up fast as a feasible alternatives to India, the country needs to rely on new technologies and innovative business models to ensure that these opportunities are not lost to mentioned destinations.

The concept of home agents may sound new to the India market, but it has already gained a foothold in most of the advanced countries like USA, Australia, New Zealand, UK and Japan.

Globally, the factor responsible for the growth of home agents is not costs, but more to do with hiring and retaining highly qualified agents.

At present there are over 150,000 agents working from home in the US. As per estimates, this number can go up to 325,000 in the next three years. Further, according to projections in the US, home agents can save around 30% of fully loaded costs, largely contributed by saving on brick and mortar facilities.

“We see this option being explored by most BPOs as they bring strong value to operations. We expect Indian BPOs which are currently in the evaluation phase to get into deployment in the next 6-12 months” says Ketan Shah, BU head, contact centers, Avaya Global Connect.

Although, the home agent concept is a great thought to narrow the rural-urban divide, non-availability of unfaltering connectivity, security concerns and poor infrastructure can deter BPO organizations to invest in far-flung areas.

The concept of home agent is completely new to India. There is hardly any structured service delivery that currently operates on this model. It will take time to gain acceptance,” says Raju Bhatnagar VP, BPO and Government Relations, Nasscom.

Different Strokes
Though the concept of home agents has gained huge recognition in Western countries, there are various issues that need to be resolved to match the same amount of popularity in the Indian context. Firstly, the country lacks when it comes to robust infrastructure and all-purpose facilities in rural and far-flung areas. It is grappled with issues such as poor infrastructure, connectivity, availability of PCs, security, etc.