| India is expected to maintain its edge over its global counterparts in the outsourced IT Services (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors. |
| According to a study by outsourcing advisory firm neoIT, even at the projected growth rate of 8.7 per cent, the average salary of Indian ITO/BPO professionals in 2010 will be 15 per cent of what their counterparts in the US will get at that time. |
| Speaking to Business Standard, Sabyasachi Satpathy, senior director, neoIT said according to the neoIT ITO and BPO salary report, the average salary for these sectors in India in 2005 stands at $5,503 per annum. This is 12 per cent of the average salary in the US of $69,936. |
| "At a CAGR of 8.7 per cent, the average salary per employee for these sectors is expected to reach $12,877 by 2010, which will be 15 per cent of the average salary in the US then," he added. |
| According to the report, the salary average for ITO/BPO professionals in India at $8,485 per annum, stood next only to Vietnam at $5,503 and China at $8,455, in 2005. |
| However, the salary growth rate in India is the highest among the offshoring destinations at 8.7 per cent followed by Vietnam at 7.3 per cent and China, Russia and Costa Rica at 7.2 per cent each. |
| The average salary growth for the ITO and BPO sectors in the US is expected to be 3.6 per cent to become $83,464 by 2010, as compared to the $69,936 per annum in 2005. |
| Presently, the US leads in terms of the average salary for these sectors, followed by Ireland at $48,178, Canada at $37,589 and Singapore at $36,700 per annum. |
| The substantial growth in the average salary in India have been attributed to inflation, exchange rate, supply-demand equation of ITO/BPO professionals, captive operations as well as high attrition. |
| According to industry sources, the attrition at the voice-based BPO sector in India presently stands in the range of 45-50 per cent, whereas in non-voice BPO, this is about 35 per cent. |
| The reason, says Satpathy, is the profile of people who are mostly intermediates or graduates looking at voice-BPO as a part-time career option. |
| "Either they go for higher studies or swap jobs after securing training for a period of four months creating a profile," said Satpathy. |
| In terms of the average salaries of the key offshore destinations in ITO sector, Vietnam has the lowest cost at $6,131 per employee/per annum followed by India at $9,896 and China at $10,095. Salary average for ITO sector is highest in Canada at $43,484 per annum/per employee followed by Singapore at $41,512 per annum. |
| In the BPO sector, the salary average in Vietnam stood at the bottom at $5,188 followed by China at $7,634 and India at $7,779. |
| "Although BPO salary average in China is little lower when compared to India and growing at 7.2 per cent, the average spend on a team comprising programme manager, project leads, programmers is bigger there and accordingly the spend on them is also more or less the same in comparison to India," said Satpathy. |
| While the average team size in the BPO sector includes a programme manager, about six project leads and 90 programmers, in China there are more people at the top and middle levels with at least two programme managers and 10-12 project leads although at the programmer level the size is the same as that of India. |
| Reason, said Satpathy, is that India as a favourable destination with process maturity and has an edge in technical competence. |
| "China's BPO industry is still growing and maturing. Although there is a giant market potential in China for the BPO market, talent is a big challenge which they are trying to overcome by producing more educated professionals with improved english language skill," the report added. |
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