Akshaya Bhargava: The underwater earthquake

The BPO industry will bring about a tectonic social shift in ten years

There is so much euphoria about the BPO business that it almost seems too good to be true. New customers land in Bangalore every day, new companies are opened every month, and existing ones are growing at an unbelievable pace.

The government is in favour, the media love it, college graduates think it's cool, and middle management professionals now have a new career option...move over, IT industry""BPO is here!

There is, of course, good reason for this optimism. BPO represents a new commercial paradigm for international trade in services and India's unique positioning makes it a beneficiary of this tsunami that we all sense coming our way. All BPO companies are working hard to deal with this and the day-to-day impact of this is evident all around us.

However, I believe that while the immediate impact of the BPO industry is certainly something we must not ignore, the longer-term effects are far more profound and have the potential to bring about very deep and fundamental socio-economic changes in India.

The Indian BPO industry today (Year 2004): The Indian BPO industry is different in many ways from traditional businesses in India and even from the IT industry, with which it shares many attributes. Some major points:

Reach: Unlike the IT industry, BPO reaches out to the masses. Any college degree is enough to enter the industry, and given the rate at which this industry is growing, there will always be opportunities for pretty much most college graduates who want a job, have some aptitude, and are willing work hard.

Customers: The early adopters of Indian BPO are some of the largest MNCs in the world (Citigroup, Amex, GE, HSBC, etc.). These are also some of the most demanding customers on the planet; they can (and do) benchmark against the best in the world; they lay down the highest standards for delivery and are ruthless in demanding these from their service providers. There are no three strikes against these companies""one strike and you are usually out.

Infrastructure: The BPO industry has taken a leaf out of the IT industry's books and has (very wisely) not stinted on the quality of infrastructure, premises, office furniture, and general work environment.

The need to keep people motivated and excited has resulted in a lot of emphasis being placed on creating a fun and attractive workplace. Today, the BPO employee in India can take a world-class working environment for granted.

Training: The initial unfamiliarity with client processes, stiff metrics, need for quality""all translate into a very significant training requirement and again, the BPO industry has more than risen to this challenge.

All new BPO employees undergo rigorous training and certification. Moreover, some of the material being used is absolutely world-class, and in more than one instance, has been adopted by the customer for use at the home location.

Quality: Driven by the customers, the Indian BPO industry has implemented extensive quality programmes, and certifications like COPC, ISO9002, and BS7799 are commonplace. This further reinforces the tough standards that the service providers are required to achieve.

Recruitment: If you talk to the leading BPO companies, they will all report a recruitment rate around 5 per cent. This means that out of every 100 people who apply for a job, only five get selected. This ensures that the BPO workers are really the best amongst the crop of graduates that leave our colleges every year.

If you put all this together, you have an industry that is recruiting the best people at the entry level from a very wide spectrum of colleges, placing them in a world-class work environment, training them to very high standards and putting them to work for some of the most demanding customers in the world.

Indian BPO industry""10 years later ... (Year 2014): Now fast forward this situation to year 2014. The Indian BPO industry is an enormous success. It has grown at a compounded annual rate of 50 per cent and now employs 6.5 million people. If you include people who started life in the BPO industry and have moved on to do other things (assuming an annual attrition rate of 30 per cent for the BPO industry as a whole), you will have another 6 million people.

This means that there will be over 12 million individuals in our country who have worked in the BPO industry, i.e. have been through the rigorous recruitment tests, extensive training, are accustomed to working in a very high-quality environment, don't consider air-conditioning a luxury, have a very strong work ethic and expect similar professionalism from their colleagues as a matter of course, are used to satisfying very demanding customers, and delivering quality that is second to none in the world.

These will be the Indians who have acquired global skills without having to migrate to the West.

The underwater earthquake: This is what the IT industry did to India during the 1990s. The dramatic impact of BPO becomes clearer when you consider the fact that the IT industry employs only about 500,000 people. Yet, in 10 years, it transformed the social, economic, and trade pattern of our country. It has increased India's forex reserves beyond belief and has placed India on the world services map where the "Made in India" label can be used with pride.

If 500,000 people can transform India in 10 years, imagine what 12 million can do""just think of what India would be like if we have an IT industry 24 times its current size...the mind boggles.

We will have a large body of people who will deliver, expect and demand quality not just in their professional lives but in their personal lives too. It will no longer be acceptable to have dirty streets, chaotic traffic, grubby common areas in apartment blocks, an d lack of efficiently-run public services.

The traditional apathy of the Indian middle class to our immediate environment will begin to erode because there will be a large multitude of professional people who will say, "No, this is not good enough. We know better and we want better." And these people will not be a small, faceless minority""thanks to their training, their exposure to global companies, their work ethic and their sheer numbers, they will be a large and vocal group who will insist on being heard.

This is nothing short of a tectonic social shift when you contemplate the sheer magnitude of the BPO industry of 2014. However, we do not need to wait till 2014...this change is happening right now. It is taking place right in front of us but like an underwater earthquake, it is invisible to us on the shore.

Like an underwater earthquake, it will create a huge upheaval in the old landscape that we today take for granted. And when this trend reaches a critical mass, like an underwater earthquake, it will change our shorelines completely and forever.

This is not a theoretical possibility. It is a reality that is here and now. It is simply not obvious. It is up to us to help this wave along and to build a BPO industry that will not only be a commercial success but will redefine our country.

(The writer is CEO, Progeon)