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IT and telecom sectors have
received tremendous attention in India in the recent months. The vast potential in the
country for these sectors has been highlighted by numerous agencies in India and strongly
supported by overseas experts. The Government of India, investors, and entrepreneurs are
responding to this opportunity and challenge with great enthusiasm. The credentials of
India in the software field are already proven and long-term potential easily
recognizable. The potential to excel in the services sector, particularly call
centres, is
even larger.
The Industry Worldwide
In an environment of
increasing customer demands, deregulation, competition, and quest for better business and
financial results, call centres have proven to be an important tool for success. A call
centre helps in maintaining an intimate relationship with customers and provides excellent
services on a mass basis.
Call
centres have now become the focus of value-added customer contact. In today’s
customer acquisition and support environment, there is immense inbound and outbound
communications with a company’s customers and its internal business constituencies.
Traditionally, these have been operated from within a call centre. In a study conducted by
the WEFA Group for the Direct Marketing Association, the total sales generated by the tele
marketing in 1997 was estimated to be $289 billion. Call centres have additional
significant activities beyond tele marketing–handling customer support, billing, help
desk functions, etc.
The
Internet is quickly expanding these applications into the e-commerce field. Addition of
these services has led to increased demands for call centres and the need for more agents.
Presently, there are more than 1,00,000 call centres and 2 million agent positions across
the globe. The demand for agent positions is growing at the rate of approximately 23 to 25
percent. In order to meet this growing demand and also ever-growing need to be more
cost-effective, many organizations worldwide are outsourcing these services from locations
that can meet their requirements of skilled, English-speaking, and cost-effective
workforce of agents. Many companies across the world are interested in outsourcing their
customer acquisition, service/support/billing; sales staff and help desk hotlines.
Outsourcing of these specialized tasks to outside companies has become common in
today’s business world.
The
increasing need for call centre services internationally will ensure that this industry
remains on a high-growth path even in this millennium. However, this growth in volumes and
skill-sets required to succeed has created major challenges in the developed countries in
recent years.
Some
of these major challenges are
l High-growth rate resulting in continuous demand
for extra manpower
l High agent turnover
l High agent costs
l Large training costs
l Missed opportunities due to high abandoned calls
l Changing
trend from "call centre" to "contact centre" is resulting in
additional challenges and
  enhanced costs on the
following counts:
l Higher skill-set requirements
l Additional training n Investment in
technology
l Greater stress on manpower resulting in higher
turnover.
India — An Ideal
Destination
It
is now the most appropriate time for India to leverage its intrinsic strengths and focus
on being a major success as outsource destination. India with its vast number of
English-speaking, tech-savvy, and cost-effective workforce is gaining a lot of attention
worldwide and is expected to be a good base for providing such services.
In
a call centre operation, manpower typically accounts for 55 to 60 percent of the total
cost. In India, the manpower cost is approximately one-tenth of what it is overseas. Per
agent cost in USA is approximately $40,000 while in India it is only $5,000.
It
is also very encouraging to note that the Government of India has recognized the potential
of such services and has taken positive steps by providing numerous incentives.
The
presence of most international technology vendors and solutions would enable creation of
most advanced set-ups in this technology intensive segment.
Success
stories like GE provide tremendous encouragement to both the Indian entrepreneur as well
as the likely business partners from overseas.
Indian
Challenge
While
large and real opportunities exist for India, there are numerous challenges. People
setting up international outsource call centres need to understand the nature of this
industry as this requires delivery of live service thus leaving no chance for mistakes.
Slippage in service delivery standards could result in immediate cancellation of the
contracts. The peculiar nature of this industry coupled with high operational expense
poses significant challenges.
The
service nature of this industry requires complete involvement and hands-on approach by the
promoters and management team. The challenge for the initial entrepreneurs is greater as
they would be the pioneers and leaders in this nascent industry in India. The success or
failure of each is going to rub off on the other and go a long way in creating the
"India Call Centre" brand. The pioneers will need vision and focus to create
success centres.
Some
of the challenges that these pioneers will need to identify and address are
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| With paging industry gasping for breath due to the plummeting subscriber base, boom in the call centre market has come as a welcome relief. These companies are using their infrastructure and human resources to act “help desk” for various corporates and some multinational companies. These companies in order to concentrate on their core competencies have chosen to outsource the customer relation management or help desk part of their work. Paging companies such as Easycall have grabbed this opportunity. It has tied up with Asian Paints, Satyam Online, ANZ Grindlays, American Express, State Bank of India, Citibank, ICICI, and HSBC and handles calls for them. MobiLink and RPG have also diversified into call centre business. MobiLink has clients like General Motors, Opel Astra, Hyundai, Fiat Auto, Orix Auto, Akai, Thomas Cook, and Stanchart’s credit card services. |
Infrastructure Challenges
l Power
l IT and Software standard buildings
l Last mile reliability
l Bandwidth limitations
Manpower Challenges
A
vast call centre oriented manpower pool needs to be
l Created
l Trained
l Managed
l Motivated
l Retained
Operational Challenges
l Managing 24X7 operations
l Transportation and
logistics
l Administration, security,
etc
l Recreation
l Scheduling of activities
In the 1970s and
1980s, India completely missed the wave of "outsource of manufacturing" but if
we can convert the present excitement and enthusiasm into a concrete action plan and work
on it systematically with a long-term focus then India can surely lead and ride the wave
of "outsourcing of services" as all the right ingredients are in place.