Chennai Joins In
The third event of the VOICE&DATA BPO Summit 2008 was held in Chennai. The discussion started with the introduction and welcome note by Baburajan K, executive editor, VOICE&DATA.

The first session included insights and discussion from Ganesh Kumar, VP, Operations, e4e; Vinod Harith, founder and director, CMO Axis; Ranjit Pisharoty, senior VP, Strategic Program Solutions, Sutherland Global Services; Prakash Iyer, group product head, Tata Communications; and Shyamanuja Das, editor, Dataquest.

Charting a Path: (L-R) Anil Bajpai of iGate Solutions, Yazad Boga of Tata Communications, Anand Talwai of e4e, KS Ganesan of MIcroland, N Gajapathy of Aditya Birla Minacs, Subramanya C of HTMT Global	Panelists: (L-R) JB Singh of Sify Technologies, Ankush Gangwani of Tata Communications, Ganesh Kumar of e4e, Shyamanuj Das of Dataquest, Sharad Junghare of Aditya Birla Minacs, Rangaraj S of HTMT Global Solutions, Swaminathan Dandapani of Infosys BPO, and Aman Mustafa of ACS Global Operations Support

The discussions concluded with some interesting insights into the present trends of the BPO industry, which lately has been moving toward the tier-2 cities. Most of the panelists agreed that there is a strong need for expansion, and to make smaller towns and cities a viable model for the second phase of development in the Indian BPO story. Moving toward smaller towns and cities, the BPO industry can survive much longer in India as there are regions with huge potential that have not been fully utilized. Cities like Gurgaon and Noida have already established as a perfect example of development in this context.

Panelists: (L-R) JB Singh of Sify Technologies, Ankush Gangwani of Tata Communications, Ganesh Kumar of e4e, Shyamanuj Das of Dataquest, Sharad Junghare of Aditya Birla Minacs, Rangaraj S of HTMT Global Solutions, Swaminathan Dandapani of Infosys BPO, and Aman Mustafa of ACS Global Operations Support	Broadening Horizons: (L-R) Saravana Thambusamy of Allsec, Prakash Iyer of Tata Communications, Shyamanuj Das of Dataquest, Rajnithpishawdi of Southerland Global Services, Vinod Harith of CMO Axis, and Ganesh Kumar of e4e

The panelists discussed the need of combining talents of different pools and geographies for creating the next part of development in the country. The cultural barriers also need to be overcome to make India the best destination for BPO work, felt experts.

Gaining Ground: (L-R) Pradeep Sreedharan of Cable2Wireless India, Saravana Thambusamu of Allsec, B Rajaganpathy of KPMG, Bobby M Vargnese of Cyber Slash Support, V Chandrasekaran of Secova, Yazad Boga of Tata Communications	All Set: (L-R) Adeni of Sitel India, Rajnish Sarna a BPO industry consultant, S Shyam Sunder of Magus Customer Dialog, Sangram Gayal of PWC, Guhan Ramanan of Caliber Point Business Solutions, Pranesh Babu of Sify Technologies, Parkash Iyer of Tata Communications

Panelists for the second session, “does the hosted model offer real flexibility?” included V Chandrasekaran, co-founder and CTO, Secova; Bobby M Varghese, VP, IT & IS, CSS CORP, Cyber Slash support; Pradeep Sreedharan, head, Service Delivery, Cable & Wireless India; Yazad Boga, head, IT/BPO Verticals, Tata Communications; and B Rajaganapathy, manager, IT Advisory, KPMG.

Voicing Concerns: (L-R) Rajendra Deshpande of Intelenet, Noel Thomas of Integreon, Avesh Shaikh of Sitel India, Prashanto K Roy of Cybermedia, Saurabh Kaushal of Frost & Sullivan, Yazad Boga of Tata Communications, and Andie Rees of Cosmocom Asia

According to the panelists, while the hosted model can certainly provide better flexibility, it is also imperative to carefully examine the capabilities of the hosted provider. As quality and reliability are the two most important things that need to be taken care of for a better customer experience. The challenge ultimately is acceptability with clients.

All at Mumbai
The Mumbai event also saw intense discussions from eminent industry personnel.

Safir Adeni, CEO, Sitel India, gave his valuable insights during his welcome note and said, “The BPO industry is maturing everyday. It has done well in the past to attract global markets by delivering quality work in a cost effective manner. Given that today's customer has become much more quality conscious and demands innovation, speed, and flexibility.”

“There is a dynamic need for technology as clients demand flexibility of migrating from one platform to another. The core competency then is to design, develop, and implement the actual business needs of consumers,” he added.

The first session for the day included panelists Safir Adeni, CEO, Sitel India; S Shyam Sunder, director, Magus Customer Dialog; Rajnish Sarna, consultant, BPO Industry; Guhan Ramanan, director, Business Transformation, Caliber Point Business solutions; JB Singh, general manager, Voice Business, Sify Technologies; Prakash Iyer, group product head, Tata Communications; and Sangram gayal, principal consultant, PwC.

Discussions concluded that, post the plans of DoT, remote agents could be the future of the outsourcing business.

Rajendra Deshpande, CTO, Intelenet; Noel Thomas, director, IT and Infrastructure, Integreon; Avesh Shaikh, VP and head, IT, Sitel India; Saurabh Kaushal, principal consultant, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan; Yazad boga, head, IT /BPO Verticals, Tata Communications; and Prasanto K Roy, chief editor, CyberMedia India, were the panelists for the second session of the day.

The core summary of the discussion was that taking into account the US recession, offshoring is essential for the BPO industry while retaining margins could be a key issue.

The session talked about the major challenges and needs of the BPO industry. Experts felt that it is important to weigh the functional and technical benefits as compared to the potential drawbacks when going for a hosted model. The business model should be adopted only after a thorough analysis of the needs and customer service allegiances is completed.

The Next Level
The BPO industry has thus far provided exponential opportunity in India in terms of jobs, revenue, and management. Being the hub of resources, and its abundant talent pool, the future of the BPO industry in India can survive much longer provided the industry expands at a faster rate in smaller towns and villages, where cost of operation is 15-20% lower.

The capability of organizations to scale up is also important while adopting a hosted model. The experts also opined that security is a major concern for BPOs. With rising concerns of clients for their critical information, it is important to look for a hosted provider who can provide a complete mechanism for the protection of data. It is also advisable to ensure that they have certified data centers and that they continuously invest to upgrade in their security technologies. However, the willingness of BPOs to outsource their contact centers is itself a major question that was taken up during the discussions.

The event also saw a number of presentations from industry stalwarts.

Jatinder Singh

jatinders@cybermedia.co.in