Business process outsourcing to India refers to the business process outsourcing services in the outsourcing industry in India, catering mainly to Western operations of multinational corporations (MNCs).
As of 2012, around 2.8 million people work in outsourcing sector. Annual revenues are around $11 billion, around 1% of GDP. Around 2.5 million people graduate in India every year. Wages are rising by 10–15 percent as a result of skill shortage. As of 2021, revenue of Indian BPO industry was estimated at US$ 38 billion. Government of India has launched India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS) as part of Digital India initiative to encourage job creation in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. India's BPO Industry handles 56% of the world's business process outsourcing.
History
Amex
In the second half of the 1980s, American Express consolidated its JAPAC (Japan and Asia Pacific) back office operations into Gurgaon region. This centre (called the Financial Resource Centre East or FRC-E)was headed by an Expat Harry Robertson, a veteran American Express employee with Raman Roy reporting to him, Raman Roy later on quit Amex to join GE and later on started his own enterprise called Spectramind which got later on merged with Wipro and then later on started Quatrro BPO.
General Electric
In the 1990s Jack Welch was influenced by K.P. Singh, (a Delhi-based realtor) to look at Gurgaon in the NCR region as a base for back office operations. Pramod Bhasin, the India head of G.E. hired Raman Roy and several of his management from American Express to start this enterprise called GECIS (GE Capital International Services). Raman for the first time tried out voice operations out of India. The operations in India were the Beta site for the GE Six sigma enterprise, as well. The results made GE ramp up their Indian presence and look at other locations.
In 2004 GECIS was spun off as a separate legal entity by GE, called Genpact. GE has retained a 40% stake and sold a 60% stake for $500 million to two equity companies, Oak Hill Capital Partners and General Atlantic Partners.
Future of outsourcing services to India
Analysts believe that India remains a vital destination for outsourcing and expect its annual GDP to grow at 8–10% for the next decade. In addition, outsourcing efforts to India are held up as an effective remedy for concerns about both Chinese government policy and labour force issues, such as increasing costs and shortages.
Size of the industry
The industry has been growing rapidly. It grew at a rate of 38% over 2005. For the FY06 financial year the projections is of US$7.2 billion worth of services provided by this industry. The base in terms of headcount being roughly 400,000 people directly employed in this Industry. The global BPO Industry is estimated to be worth 120–150 billion dollars, of this the offshore BPO is estimated to be some US$11.4 billion. India thus has some 5–6% share of the total Industry, but a commanding 63% share of the offshore component. The U.S. $7.2 billion also represents some 20% of the IT and BPO Industry which is in total expected to have revenues worth US$36 billion for 2006. The headcount at 400,000 is some 40% of the approximate one million workers estimated to be directly employed in the IT and BPO Sector.
The related Industry dependent on this are Catering, BPO training and recruitment, transport vendors (home pick up and drops for night shifts being the norm in the industry), security agencies, facilities management companies.
Registration of BPO as OSP
BPO/KPO/Domestic & International Call Centres/NOC etc. are covered under the 'Other Service Provider' (OSP) Category by the Department of Telecommunications.