Jun 10, 2006 02:13 PM
12714 Views
The BPO and the KPO industry is one that is picking up pace fast in India. Though many regard it as a way to earn the quick buck, there are others who take this industry extremely seriously and have done wonders for themselves in this job. BPO's have chat supports, mail supports and telephone supports while KPO's, Knowledge Process Outsourcing units basically research into matters of trouble and improve the quality of the product as well customer service.
Let's begin with what basically is a BPO. Its a Business Process Outsourcing Unit and they basicallly handle the back hand processing for an organisation. Its like when we hire a contractor to build a house. He does the job for us, but we sell the house in our name. Similarly in a BPO, a third company, generally a foreign multinational ties up with an Indian company to provide certain services to its customers. The main reason for India being a natural hub for the BPO's is the cheap labour and availability of mass workforce. You see, unfortunately our indian educational system is so designed that it does not able us to work untill we are post graduates. I mean, what we get here is plain academic qualification without much knowledge of its practical applications. So generally one does not start working here until he or she is an MBA or MSc, etc. Another reason is that in India the number of jobs available for people who are technically qualified, ie, engineers, doctors, teahcers, etc, are insufficient. The number of people are many times more than the number of jobs available.
The BPO industry has many processes, some technical and some non-technical. In the non-technical processes the general sales and transactions of the commodities are taken care of like credit cards, vaccum cleaners, games, etc whereas in the technical processes the job is much more complicated. One may have to fix a high tech laptop over a phone call! Dell is one example of a technical process.
Now about the entry into a call centre job, well it seems pretty easy since one can join right after there 10+2 even but the qualifications go as high as the Six Sigma Certification and MTech or Btech. The qualification depends upon the nature and requirement of the process. For instance for a non-technical process like Hutch, one can join at a certain level after 10+2 and for a technical process the least qaulification required is CCNA+ MCSE+ Graduation. So there is a huge difference between the two and the processes also.
A relative reason for people to join call centres can also be the glamour associated with the industry. Believe me the whole idea of going out and working at night does ring a long hard bell in the minds of most youngsters. It really does, I could have atleast 4 of my own friends testify that for the sake of you. Also its a lot of money for a simple job, I mean one can atleast get Rs 6500+ conveyance in a small call centres and there is no upper limit to the salary!
Sample this, a friend of mine was working in a huge company, probably India's best BPO company and he got a call from a KPO and they offered him almost triple of what he was getting in his present job! But there's a catch and that is the job was on a contract basis. He was not being offered a long term option, it was only a 6 month contract and he, however declined it. This brings out the fact that though the BPO industry does seem inviting there are things to carefully look into. For one, avoid getting into a contract job because that does not leave you anywhere as the experience does not count.
Okay so far it seems that BPO's are the next big thing on the block. They very well are but let's take a closer look. The bad thing about BPO's is the contractual nature of the job. One must check the credentials of the organization they plan to join as there are many call centres mushrooming these days and they close down as quickly as the surface. This can have a very bad impact on the credibility of the candidate itself. Next is the trouble that one wishes to move to a more conventional job industry, the experience does not count, if you've been calling unless you brought laurels on your CV, I mean like a Six Sigma certification etc. Then there are health hazards or managerially speaking the ergonomics of the job. Since one sleeps in the day and works in the night, the entire biological cycle is affected and pretty badly at that so one has to extremely consious of their health. Also in the call centre, there are generally weekly targets, as in, an employee is supposed to complete a certain amount work per week and thus the performance is rated. Now the bad thing about it is that if the performance is not good for one week, the stab is on the overall performance because previous performance is generally not counted, so its not exactly welcoming.
To sum up the whole review, I feel that the BPO and the KPO industry is the next big thing on the block with the net worth of these industries crossing$ 5 billion and that there would be immense job opportunities for everyone and it would pave way for more specialised and job oriented education but it would have a huge effect on the health of the employee and the fact that its not a job that one can carry on forever, so one needs to specialise and find a career. Stick to one job for a while and be the master of it, then things are favourable. Rest assured, I feel that the KPO and BPO industry is here to stay for a long time and India's 8% stake of the total world's outsourcing business would soon increase.
