BPOs need to change strategy, say experts

The Indian BPO sector has to change its business model by offering clients not just process improvement but becoming their transformational partners, felt speakers at Nasscom's annual ITES-BPO summit here on Wednesday.

With the call centre business having stopped dead on its tracks, firms are going in for a vertical focus, with emphasis on processes and technology.

This platform based scramble -- developing an ERP like solution for a specific industry which would serve multiple customers in it -- will keep delivering substantial value, asserted John McCarthy, vice president at Forrester Research.

But the others had a different focus. Everybody swore by the need to make process improvements but Hubert Giraud, CEO of Capgemini Global BPO Services, argued that the worlds of IT and BPO were totally different, BPO vendors should not ask their customers to change their IT platforms in the coming age of web-based services and service oriented architecture.

Pramod Bhasin, CEO of Genpact and chairman of Nasscom's BPO forum, felt that there was indeed "a need to understand the client's technology platform" but "delivering process expertise offered quicker paybacks."

The mid-life challenge to Indian BPO was to move away from the "transactional stuff" and become "clients' business partners delivering efficiency and productivity gains."