BPO revenues to cross $9 bn: F&S

The Indian call centre industry revenue will cross $9 billion (Rs 40,500 crore) in six years owing to entry of new industries and various countries, according to Frost & Sullivan research report.

In the report on 'Asia Pacific Contact Centre Outsourcing Market', the agency estimates the number of call centre agents to touch 5.3 lakh by 2012 from 1.6 lakh now.

"In future, the demand from telecom and technology verticals will increase as they will outsource knowledge building and analytical data mining in value terms. The price per agent per hour for these services is comparatively more ... " it said.

The report also pointed out that at present, the banking and financial services industry contributes around one-third of the revenue for services such as account verification, bill payments, tele-sales, loan processing etc.

The report indicated a shift from the American market, expected to account for nearly 53 per cent of the $2.2 billion industry this year, towards other English-speaking countries.

"The outsourcing revenues from the UK will have higher growth due to cultural similarities. Australia, Singapore, France and Germany will outsource more keeping in view the cost advantage and quality standards of the Indian market," the report said.

The report also predicts a qualitative shift towards what it calls "knowledge driven" services such as technical support and analytics in future.

"Organisations will also prefer one-stop solutions and package of services for back office processes rather than outsourcing a single service. The clients will demand a complete range of solutions from customer acquisition, customer care and claims processing to collections, reconciliations, investigations and research and analysis," it pointed out, adding "providing a range of solutions will be a crucial factor for success in future."

As a result of the shift, Frost and Sullivan expects revenues from the non-telephone segment to increase to 37 per cent by 2012 from 22 per cent last year.

On the problems such as high attrition levels, recruitment and training of employees and data security, Shivanu Shukla, analyst at the research firm, said, "Since employment as a contact centre agent is not seen as a great career in most parts of the region, inadequate compensation and incentives become key reasons for attrition, and agents tend to move fast within the industry."