A few years ago, the fly-by-night retail BPO training providers were ruling the roost. Things have changed since then. Not that these training schools do not exist anymore (in fact, they have proliferated), what has changed is the realization by some of the leading training companies that there is a huge market, growing in leaps and bounds.

What has Changed?
According to Monica Doshi, the COO of Karrox, a leading provider of BPO training, "Most captive BPOs have started looking at long term training partners who understand their (client's) work culture and cater to all internal training requirements, third party BPOs still consider freelancers as an option."

According to S Nagarajan, founder and chief operating officer, 24/7 Customer, "The BPO industry over the last five years has matured and the work is more high-end, requires greater analytical skills and is more critical to the clients' business." Whether to outsource or to do it in-house has also been a difficult decision to make for most of the BPO companies. Companies are also realizing the importance of outsourcing.

Most of the retail training providers have been trying hard to attract people to enroll for their BPO training courses with placement guarantees. The response has been mixed. Training providers are also eying a large chunk of the banking, finance and telecom companies who are servicing the domestic market.

Manpower Crisis?
According to industry experts, the demand supply gap is increasing fast and a high rate of attrition is multiplying the existing manpower shortage. Aashu Calapa, vice president, human resources at ICICIOnesource, brushes aside all talks of manpower shortage. "There is no manpower shortage. It is only that all of us are trying to attract the same set of people in limited locations like Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bangalore etc. The need is to go to second tier cities and expand the talent pool that is available in abundance."

However, according to government, estimates every year, 2.1 mn graduates and 0.3 mn post-graduates pass out of India's non-engineering colleges and there will approximately be 17 mn people available to the BPO industry by 2008. But what is clearly missing here is the ready and trainable manpower, which is pretty less. There is also talk of a middle level management crisis building up in the BPO companies.

Is there a Career?
Does the BPO industry offer long-term career prospects? Opinions are divided on this. Rajeev Katyal, senior vice president, marketing, enterprise learning solutions at NIIT agrees that BPO jobs are primarily a short term career opportunities, and people do not stay long, due to night shifts, stress, and other factors. Gupta believes that the BPO companies have failed to highlight back-office jobs as long-term career prospects. Calapa thinks otherwise. "How can one say that there is no career in a $4.5 bn industry. There are several people in this industry who are working since its inception."

Recognizing the criticality of human resource for the IT industry, NASSCOM and the University Grants Commission (UGC) signed a MoU to undertake curriculum up-gradation and modification/additions to provide education and skills relevant for IT services and ITES industry. However, several previous such initiatives, which have been taken at policy level, are yet to show any concrete results.

Sudesh Prasad