Technology Convergence & Technical Support BPO

The Convergence of Technology and Skill Requirements in the Indian BPO Industry. Is there a connection? Does this matter for BPO Service Providers?

It has been happening for some time now - the other day there was an ad in the Times of India for a PDA and there was another ad in the same paper for a Phone that can double as a "palm computer". We see the New Plasma and LCD TVs getting closer to the Personal Computer and the Computer in turn getting closer to the TV! VOIP is a good example of technology convergence. Internet Protocol, Analog Phones, VOIP Technology et al.

In the United States, the VOIP User Base is getting larger .. there are industry estimates that speak of the United States VOIP User Base becoming closer to 15 Million by the year 2010. What is VOIP? It is the ability to make phone calls over the Internet by connecting your analog phone through an adapter to the internet service that you have at home. What is the Advantage? You can make phone calls to analog phones worldwide @ much lower cost.

Now let us move to the BPO Industry in India. India's march into BPO was aided significantly by its technical prowess - its huge army of smart, tech savvy people. Now to support the VOIP customer base worldwide - European customers too are embracing this technology big time - what are the skill sets that are required?An Agent in Technical Support would need to know the basics of analog telephony, internet technology and protocols, voice over internet protocal basics, computer basics and trouble shooting. A kind of tequila and cardomom tea mix. An understanding of old and new.

Is India ready for this new wave? I think we are as users - you and I can leverage this technology already when we use new age telephony companies to talk to our near and dear elsewhere in the world. We may have more work to do to support these products from India - therein lies the fortunes of many BPO Service Provider.

Service Providers who have the wisdom and wherewithal to encapsulate their learnings in these different domains and enable their agents to ramp up their understanding and abilities would be the winners.

I intend to be around watching it happen!

Cheers

Paul

The 3rd Wave of Offshore BPO

Circa 2006: Is there a difference in what Prospective Clients are looking for to what they used to look for in 2001 when they are evaluating Service Providers? For sure, there are differences. Now I would call this phase the Third Wave of Offshoring. Let us start at the beginning…

Circa 2001: First Wave – Looking for Capacity: Clients who started the Offshoring explosion in 2001 were looking for capacity – capacity to meet their needs in the scale that was needed for their businesses. Service Providers primarily sold their services based on Available Seats, Band Width and even people on the bench. Clients who moved into India at this stage typically had scale requirements and were willing to work with the selected service provider to build the specific capabilities required for hiring, training and managing.

Circa 2003: Second Wave – Looking for Capability: Clients who adopted the India Delivery Model during this phase were looking for Capability in addition to Capacity. What does Capability mean? To my mind, this means the ability to understand the United Kingdom and United States Customers, ability to hire and train and manage the team for processes such as customer service, technical support and accounts payable. Clients who embraced the India Model at this stage were seeking to catch up with the leaders in offshoring – leaders like Amex, HSBC, HP, BP etc.

Circa 2005: Third Wave – Looking for Offerings: We are currently in this phase. Prospective Clients who are coming in at this stage are looking for service offerings very close to what they are looking for. This means the Service Provider needs to have a good understanding and previous experience in the (a) Industry to which the Prospective Client belongs (b) the processes which are on the anvil for offshoring (c) the ability to seed the pilot team with about 10% of associates with vintage. If you watch the deals that service providers are striking, you will see this trend. There is a reason for this – clients who are moving into India at this stage cannot afford to wait – as much as what Aetna did when they started working with HTMT and Daksh.

Circa 2008: Fourth Wave: What would it be? Watch this space!

Cheers

Paul Simon Arakkal