MORE EXPERTS IN HEALTHCARE & RETAIL NEEDED

Domain specialists in sectors like healthcare and retail will be the growth drivers for India's business process outsourcing (BPO) services industry, according to industry body NASSCOM. "Re-branding it (BPOs) as business process management (BPM) industry is the first step in building a stronger image, which will further enhance its identity as a full-service value provider that specialises in providing performance-based services," NASSCOM President Som Mittal said here. Today, the BPM industry has changed its pricing models and it offers tailored pricing models, suiting the needs of the clients based on their geographical and other requirements, he added. India's BPO services industry accounts for 38 per cent of the global market. Speaking at the NASSCOM BPM Strategy Summit 2013, Mittal added that access to skills will be a key growth driver for the industry with more requirements in vertical domains like BFSI, healthcare and retail. Considering, India accounts for the biggest share of the global BPM sourcing market, valued at about USD 150 billion this year, he said the way forward is through continuous technological expertise in Business Process as a Service (BPaaS), automation, IT-BPM interplay, etc. "The emergence of transformational outsourcing models has led to a significant shift from being standalone operations with traditional processes to a more integrated process with technology optimised services," Mittal said. Emphasising that access to skills will be a key growth driver for the BPM industry, Mittal said. According to the BPM sector perception study, the attractiveness of the sector increases with time spent indicating at a long-term career path, he added. However, the industry perception at the student level is low as there is little awareness about the future prospects that the industry offers at the school and university level, he added. WNS Global Services CEO Keshav Murugesh said the industry is now working on developing programmes to reach out to students to showcase the immense potential that the BPM industry offers. "BPO sector is much more than just call centres. Though, skill development is one of the most important need of the hour, the industry is making efforts to create a stronger brand identity of the industry to attract more youngsters," Murugesh, who is also the Chairperson of NASSCOM's BPM Council, said. India's BPM industry directly employs about 1.1 million people and this figure will touch 1.8 million by 2020. The sector is expected to grow to USD 50 billion by 2020 from USD 20.8 billion in 2012-13 fiscal at a compounded annual growth rate of 13 per cent.