2004 will be the year of high-value BPO jobs

Off shoring jobs to India is about to get high tech in 2004. Indians have come of age, and are ready to move ahead of jobs like low-end basic data-entry and outgoing call-center jobs. Indians are much smarter than that, and firms worldwide have recognized it.

The Year 2004 will witness a sea change in the kind of jobs that are outsourced to India by global behemoths. The lion's share of these jobs will be in the areas, which need more brains than mere verbal capabilities. Analysts across the globe predict that in 2004 outsourcing to India will primarily be in the fiercely competitive financial services sector where India has the cost advantage.

Increased outsourcing will create around 300,000 jobs in India in 2004, and most of them will be in high-value BPO services. In 2004, he said, high-value service jobs will be the major growth driver of the BPO industry. Basic data-entry or outgoing call-center jobs are relatively simple and don't earn India firms much moolah. But a move into newer areas of high value services like finance and insurance can help Indian firms earn more.

A Research firm Evalueserve has predicted that high-end BPO services will touch a $50-billion a year market by 2010, wherein India will have the major chunk. The last of 2003 was the defining period for high-value outsourcing this year, which saw some major BPO deals come through. Multinationals like Aviva, Accenture, Bank of America etc decide to outsource hundreds of jobs to India.
Even Nasscom president and Forbes' Face of the Year Kiran Karnik believes strongly that India's BPO industry will grow by at least 50 per cent during the year 2004-05, and the maximum growth will be in the finance and financial services sector.

So, will high-value outsourcing be India's greatest hotspot in the year 2004? It is the question crossing everybody's mind and all the clues are hinting towards another great year for India in the field of outsourcing.