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A 'Hollywood theme' night on the Indian Navy's aircraft carrier Vikrant? Yes, a finale to Nasscom's annual conference. Both reflected the services story: a global success story centered on India, which powers much of the world's tech and business.

Back home, the story is modest, though. IT outsourcing has just about begun to ramp up in India. Driven by the largest enterprises (telcos, banks), and supplied by a couple of MNC players, Indian services giants like Infosys don't even bid for local tenders.

BPO's domestic story is even more modest. I can't even name a 'major' third-party services company.

Yes, the US and EU markets and their dollar rates make more sense for Indian services companies growing at 40%. While India's market matters to global MNCs who need to go everywhere, to get some growth.

A few are making money. For others, it's a strategic presence. DQ expects domestic services to clock $6...7 bn for 2006-07. That's without 'addressable' markets such as the BPO business that's not being outsourced because of the good old chicken-egg issue: where's the suppliers?

Ask business heads of companies of all sizes: Do they really want to do a lot of non-core stuff in-house?

No. Outsourcing is no longer about wage arbitrage (and at a domestic level, it never has been). It's not about IT or tech. It's about the business. Finance. Scalability, flexibility. Focus on core competence. Sourcing competence and acquiring best practices. It could be about turning capex into opex and more. Service providers who take over ATM or cellular tower networks can share the infrastructure, and offer better SLAs at a third of the cost.

But where are the suppliers, ask CXOs? Especially for BPO. (Oh, and BPO exporters do not do business here....where can we draw on global experience and best practices?)

Who can supply a basket of services, ask SMBs? The big guys don't talk to us. We can't go best of breed...we we're a business, not an IT shop..

At a session I was chairing at Nasscom '06, some suggested that we, the media, play a role in bridging this gap. So here's a first step.

What will it take for India's businesses to get excited about outsourcing? How to bridge the horrific gap in quality between the Indian consumer's experience of services here, and the global customer's experience of India's services? What can BPO learn from IT outsourcing, which is at least past infancy? Do enterprises want best of breed and silos or a one-stop-shop?

In 2006-07, enterprises will use it to scale up, save costs, survive, compete, thrive. A few vendors will find the 'fortune at the bottom of the pyramid', including some of the hundreds of regional services players. I do believe the year will see a surge in services outsourcing in India. Do you?

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