The Prospects of the BPO Industry in India in 2023

The digital era is finally manifesting its full potential currently. The future of BPO services is bringing a lot of benefits for all companies. With the presence of robust and formidable technologies, call center services are becoming more powerful. The best thing about the latest technologies is that they have made everything so transparent and insightful. The companies are able to draw critical insights from the latest tools and technology.

During the emergence of business process outsourcing services, we only had limited tools to assess the work. Due to limited technology and resources, the call center services were often in the blind spot as they could not track how well their strategies are being implemented and how well they are performing. But today, we have technologies like customer relationship management (CRM), advanced network protocols, and a lot more.

• India is among the group of countries that has the highest number of business process outsourcing services and the work delivery rate is also the highest in India. In other words, Indian resources are among the most fruitful and trustworthy in the world.
• About thousands and millions of fresh candidates emerge every year. India always has more human resources with promising skills. That is foreign companies have been investing more in Indian call center services in the last decade.
• Indian resources carry the most potential as the candidates are well educated and the education standards of India compete with the world’s top universities. Companies that are looking for robust outbound call center services try Indian business process outsourcing agencies to get maximum output.
• Evidently, business process outsourcing agencies have helped many foreign companies to increase their business outcome significantly. Call center services usually require young candidates for the job as it can be quite tedious.
• With the availability of millions of young professionals, India has become a hot destination for getting all kinds of BPO services for many customer-centric companies.

Indian companies are not the only major player in providing excellent call center service in the world. There are also many Asian countries that understand the profits of BPO services and so, they also want to take a piece of it. For instance, the Philippines is one of the countries providing similar advantages to Indian companies. They also have humungous resources providing comprehensive BPO solutions.

Another big reason why foreign companies tend to be more inclined towards India is because of lower wages. Yes, you heard that right. India is the only country that provides the best skills at affordable rates. The majority of foreign countries have more currency value than India. So, the overall expense of hiring an Indian BPO service is relatively lower than in other countries. Also, the business satisfaction rate is higher in India

Dealing with Competitors on a Global Scale

India is not just about providing BPO services. One can find all types of business resources in India. IT-based resources are also plentiful in India. Whether you are talking about cloud service, SaaS, infrastructure as a service, or business process outsourcing service, everything is readily available in India. Plus, most of the services can be rendered at a cheaper cost, which is the most advantageous aspect of doing business in India.

Many countries like the Philippines, Brazil, Ukraine, and Poland provide BPO services just like India. Therefore, we can consider them as rivals, especially the Philippines. These countries are trying to match the levels of India. They are trying to provide good BPO services at a more cost-effective rate than in India. Therefore, Indian companies need to take strategic steps to ward off the competition in the upcoming year.

• First of all, we need to understand the overall economical status of India. The prevalence of the BPO industry can only be witnessed in tier 1 cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, and Banglore. The cost of living in these cities is relatively higher.
• People find it difficult to manage living expenses in these cities so, they demand higher salaries. At the same time, companies that are trying to set up a BPO company in these cities endure a lot of expense due to set up an infrastructure. Collectively, it costs a lot to open BPO services in tier-1 cities.
• For overcoming these hurdles, companies should consider establishing their companies in tier 2 cities because that will lead to cost-effectiveness in finding candidates and building infrastructure.
• Candidates in tier 2 cities can be aggregated at comparatively lower cost and finding a location in tier 2 cities for opening a company would also cost less as compared to tier 1 cities.

Moreover, since India is nothing short of technical expertise and experience, a lot of companies can consider switching from BPO-based services to KPO-based solutions. It will increase the value chain of Indian companies in the global market. As we all know, all the major contributors to IT solutions and software solutions are basically Indians, we can clearly see how KPO-based services will flourish in India.

For decades Indian companies are trying to harness the power of their own resources and that is why India is becoming one of the largest economies in the world. However, just because we have an abundance of resources, we shouldn’t take things for granted. There is always more room for improvement. As technology is becoming more advanced, we should learn to leverage it in our best interests for getting maximum profit.

In recent years, the BPO industry has garnered immense profit and appreciation throughout the globe. The wages of Indian candidates have also increased as the industry has grown. The call center services in India are ready to provide handsome salaries to the candidates willing to join the BPO workforce. Therefore, it is safer to say that, BPO services will witness the massive growth in 2023 without a doubt.

Interesting Blog: In-Demand BPO Companies in Noida

Overcoming the Upcoming Challenges for Indian BPOs in 2023

Every business faces hiccups from time to time. The BPO industry in India has undoubtedly performed well beyond the anticipations of the client company but the studies indicate that call center services usually work in a haphazard manner. Also, we have noticed some instabilities in the working model of the BPO agencies in the country. Due to the chaotic and rushed work culture, the BPO agencies are not able to streamline their strategies.

Infrastructure and logistics management are one of the most affected areas of the BPO industry in India. The problem is prevailing for over a decade now but we are still yet to find out a viable solution for this problem. Also, the employee attrition rate in the BPO sector is affected due to the tediousness and pressure included in the job. The employees are usually in the position of switching companies due to intense workloads. 

Infrastructural Disruptions

India is quite a densely populated country and it is one of the largest and most sophisticated democratic countries. Apart from the advantages of having an abundance of resources, there is also a demand for resources in the country. For example, frequent power outages, political movements, traffic congestion, strikes, and shutdowns are quite common in the country. So, all these aspects tend to disrupt the functions of call center services.

The BPO industry is responsible for the business improvement of the client companies. A lot of times, these companies are in the position of working 24/7 through multiple shift timings. Due to the above-mentioned disruptions, BPOs are not able to operate at their full potential. The ITES industry is trying to come to a mutual agreement with the government to overcome these challenges and hopefully, we will find a cordial solution in 2023.

Lack of Skills among Candidates

There are millions of students graduating from universities every year however, it has been noticed that they are not able to meet the company's standards. Despite having a college degree, they are not able to pass the tests given during the interview process. The rate of employment is still less in the country. Therefore, the existing tech giants in India are asking the universities to train their students and make them ready for industrial requirements.

Although the education system in India is quite competitive but theoretical knowledge gained in educational institutions is not sufficient enough for industrial requirements. Due to this, BPO companies are in the position of training their candidates for a longer period for handling the job responsibilities.

It leads to a loss of productivity and money for the BPO agencies. However, it is not the usual case with every candidate but this problem exists on a smaller scale. Moreover, the candidates have now access to online content so they are able to learn many things about the industry. The latest technologies have helped the candidates to learn more.

The Prevalence of Competitors

Indian BPOs are not short of skills and technology and this is a fact. The Indian BPO market is the most formidable as compared to countries. Inbound and outbound call center services are often considered low-end work. BPO jobs mainly entail a large amount of tedious work that is relatively easy by quite burdensome. But there are many companies ready to provide low-end work for western companies.

Unfortunately, many countries including the Philippines and Malaysia are also aware of the huge potential of the BPO industry. So, there are also trying to reap the maximum benefits of working in this industry. It comes as a major threat to the Indian BPO industry. In order to overcome the sudden breach of competition, Indian companies are trying to expand their reach by providing KPO services and bringing in more innovation for a higher value chain.

The Increase in Inflation Rate in the US and UK

This is probably one of the biggest problems we are facing current in India. As we all know that the countries like the US and UK are facing a recession at this moment. This creates a serious threat to the BPO industry in India. It is because the majority of client companies belonging to the US, UK, and Australia. Due to this reason, these companies will inevitably try to reduce their budget for hiring business process outsourcing in India.

However, these countries are more likely to gain economical stability very soon. And, these discrepancies are often anticipated in all business sectors. Therefore, BPO companies in India must introduce countermeasures to overcome this hurdle. Indian companies have already taken extrapolated actions assuming this problem will occur someday. But that doesn’t give us an excuse to sit back and relax. Companies should always be vigilant.

Read More: What are the Essential Factors that You Need to Consider While Choosing BPO Service Provider?

Conclusion:

Hence, these are some of the predictions of the BPO industry we ruled out for the upcoming year (2023). The BPO industry has been flourishing seamlessly for the past two decades in India.

Since Indian companies have been in this industry for a significant period of time, it is highly unlikely that we will face any major issues. To substantiate this argument, we can take a quick look at the events that took place during the COVID lockdown.

Due to better accessibility to new technologies and communication tools, the BPO industry remained unaffected during the most critical times of the world.