BPOs beat American outsourcing backlash

To start with, nearly 150 new companies joined IT industry association Nasscom’s rolls over last year. Compare this with 200 additions in the BPO-boom of Y2K and 75-80 average yearly additions.

‘‘We added nearly 150 new members in 2004-05,’’ says Nasscom Vice President Sangeeta Gupta. ‘‘This healthy trend shows that more and more people understand outsourcing is here to stay. You will see greater visibility — and greater maturity — from IT firms going ahead,’’ she says.

Among those who climbed aboard Nasscom are the BPOs of StanChart, JP Morgan and fresh entrant Verisign.

‘‘BPOs feel they need not create a hooplah, but the general mood in the market to not be visible has changed, as companies realise outsourcing is here to stay,’’ says Gupta.

Lips sealed until January 2005 but for a few big-ticket acquisitions that couldn’t hide away, BPOs also beat expectations to grow more than 32 per cent in 2004-05.

This helped too, as the smaller domestic players decided to crawl out of the woodwork and demand assistance from Nasscom.

The new members are evenly divided into large, (gross revenue over Rs 100 crore), mid-sized (up to Rs 100) and small firms.

‘‘The membership profile shows 50 per cent are smaller firms while the rest, large or medium-sized as it has largely been,’’ says Gupta. Nearly half the new members are BPOs, and another half, domestic firms.

Their city-wise spread also has something to cheer about. While the metros, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune keep a lion’s share, B-towns like Baroda, Ahmedabad and Nasik claim over 6 per cent of the IT body’s members.