Mysore striving to attract BPO businesses

The city of Mysore, known for its academic institutions and having among the best talent pool in the state, is eyeing more BPO firms.

Speaking to Business Standard, established players in the BPO industry are of the opinion that the talent pool available could well serve the companies eyeing alternative cities to Bangalore.

Anand, a professional with over six years of industry experience, managing the ITES segment of IT company Software Paradigms International feels, "With quality academic institutions, Mysore generates a good number of talented youngsters every year. BPO is a good employment generation capability. The city is also the hub for education with lots of people from villages coming to Mysore to study. BPOs would generate employment for these people."

Agrees Sudhanva, director of Excel Soft, another well-established IT company that recently ventured into high-end BPO services, "Opportunity for BPOs in Mysore is fairly big. The talent pool that Mysore produces is migrating to other places like Bangalore. BPOs are an attractive option for these youngsters to be employed in their home town."

"The quality of life in Mysore is much better than Bangalore which puts a person through a lot of stress and pollution levels. The city can also bank on its heritage and tourism status. BPOs are looking at alternate profiling to check the shortfall of skilled manpower and are also hiring retired people who are present in large numbers in Mysore," says Anand whose BPO division's 70 per cent of staff are Mysoreans.

Last year, Software Paradigm International went commercial with a BPO unit "" 'Specialised Process Innovation'. The captive unit processes internal HR requests, develops content for training and business development departments and handles document management for the parent company.

However, the unit went external offering back-end customer care and administration services to US clients operating in healthcare and financial services sectors. Customer care services offered by SPI include 24/7 helpdesk support and voice and web-based support while data management is part of its administration services.

SPI has also acquired 8.5 acres of land in Hebbal in Mysore for expanding its BPO operations to a 3,000-strong team in 3-5 years. The present 30-member BPO team comprises three engineers and 27 science or commerce graduates of which 99 per cent are pursuing higher education.

Excel Soft recently forayed into e-learning, which comprises high-end BPO work. Subject experts convert legacy content into print or archived formats is converted into knowledge content for e-learning. The content is then processed into newer and more attractive design formats by adding animation and programming.

Excel Soft's e-learning projects cater to schools in UK. Medical education, engineering, consulting and teaching are the company's areas of work in e-learning. Clients include several well-known international publishing houses.

With great market demand, high prices and volumes of data to be converted into content with value, Excel Soft is also planning to ramp up its operations.

Today, Mysore banks on the four-lane high-speed expressway from Bangalore and is hoping that the government keeps its word on providing better infrastructure, connectivity and the much publicised BPO park in Bogadi that would lead to the city's growth and attract more companies.