Is India still the preferred offshore location in the KPO space?
Introduction
Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) is about getting high-end, value-added work done by resources whose co-location with the end client is not necessary, where the effort is people-intensive, and the end product is arrived at through rigorous methodologies. Because this type of work requires a high level of judgment, subjective analysis and interpretation, the end results can vary from practitioner to practitioner. The nature of knowledge work is sophisticated and off shoring such work will require a significant degree of partnership and collaboration beyond the process standardization and compliance seen in the initial waves of IT outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) thus far. In simple terms KPO refers to the outsourcing of high-end complex tasks and processes to specialized service providers. These include valuation research, investment research, patent filing, legal and insurance claims processing, etc. KPO provides value to the client through domain expertise rather than process expertise.
According to Evalueserve, share of Indian KPO sector is expected to increase to 71% of the Global KPO sector, with revenues of USD 12 billion, by 2010.The Indian KPO industry is expected to employ more than 250,000 KPO professionals by 2010. But this growth seems highly optimistic in the view of facts like availability of trained manpower, high attrition rates and rising salaries. These factors have more compounded effect on the KPO sector because of the specialized requirements of this sector.
In the age of globalization, outsourcing was a crucial business strategy for companies that wanted to remain competitive. The rise of the Chinese and the Indian economy meant that ...