NASSCOM Takes Measures to Keep Indian BPO Momentum High

India leads in five key dimensions of competitiveness: abundant talent,
quality and scaleable infrastructure, operational excellence, conducive business
environment and growing domestic BPO market.

The Indian ITES-BPO exports grew from USD 6.3 billion in FY 2005-06 to USD
8.4 billion in FY 2006-07 while the revenues of domestic BPO grew significantly
to USD 1.2 billion in FY 2006-07 from USD 0.9 billion in FY 2005-06. The sector
provides direct employment to 553,000 in FY 07 up from 415,000 in FY 06.

The addressable market for offshore BPO globally stands at USD 150 billion
leaving enough headroom for further growth. India is already the leading
skill-surplus destination and will continue to be so in the next decade.

In order to maintain this leadership position, the NASSCOM ITES-BPO Forum is
focused on addressing the specific needs of the industry and further consolidate
'Brand India' in the ITES-BPO space worldwide. The Forum has now been active for
the past four years and has been conducting a series of activities at a national
and regional level involving industry players, government and academia. In its
ongoing efforts to maintain the cutting edge advantage and facilitate the build
up of skilled manpower, a number of NASSCOM initiatives are underway.

The Forum has taken up some key initiatives. 'Best Practices in Ethics'
Framework for the ITES-BPO industry that aims to create a set of guidelines
which will help in attracting and retaining talent and solving the issue of
attrition to a large extent.

NASSCOM Assessment of Competence (NAC)is launched as an industry standard
assessment and certification program to ensure the transformation of a
"trainable" workforce into an "employable workforce" hence
creating a robust and continuous pipeline of talent for the BPO sector.

After the successful rollout of NAC in Rajasthan where 2500 people took the
test and subsequent job fair was held, NAC is now being taken to the next level,
by proliferating it across Tier II and Tier III cities and towns. These cities
will be developed as the BPO hubs and used as playgrounds for nurturing
job-ready professionals. By the end of the year, NAC will be rolled out in
various states of India, including Gujarat in August 2007, Chandigarh and Andhra
Pradesh in September 2007 and North East from October 2007 to January 2008.

In the future, NAC will help align educational curriculum offered by
universities and colleges in the country with the needs of the ITES-BPO sector.
The initiative is also expected to help ITES-BPO players reduce their hiring
costs, improve efficiencies, enlarge the candidate pool and perhaps more
importantly reduce; if not remove the current escalation the market is seeing in
entry-level wages.

The Forum has also formulated security framework in the industry. The
National Skills Registry (NSR) is a centralized database of employees of the IT
services and BPO companies, was launched as a step to ensure that there is a
verified database (with independent background checks) of the human resources
within the Industry. This is the first such registry of its kind in the global
IT BPO industry.

The initiative has reached a substantial mass with the registration for the
NSR touching the 1,25,000 mark as of July 2007 of which 60% are web
registrations and rest 40% are complete registration. NASSCOM will also be
rolling out a series road shows to generate awareness in the next six months
across 8 cities. The target is to take this number 5 times over to touch 500,
000 by December 2007.

Another key milestone was the launch of Data Security Council of India, a
self regulatory body for the Indian IT-BPO industry in April 2007. Headed by Mr.
Shyamal Ghosh as its Chairman, the DSCI will establish, popularize, monitor and
enforce privacy and data protection standards for India's ITeS-BPO industry.

As part of the Trusted Sourcing Initiative, NASSCOM has been working very
closely with Indian law enforcement organizations. NASSCOM has set-up cyber
training labs in Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Bangalore for training police officers
in cyber crime investigation and till date, over 3000 police officers and
personnel have been trained through programs conducted at Pune, Nasik, Udhampur
(J&K Police Academy), Gurgaon, Barrackpore (West Bengal Police Academy),
Aurangabad, Nagpur, Goa, Bhopal, Indore, Jaipur, Gandhinagar (Gujarat) and
Thrissur (Kerala Police Academy). NASSCOM, in partnership with Chandigarh
Administration and Punjab Engineering College, also launched 1st Regional Cyber
Security and Research Centre (RCSRC) in Chandigarh in March 2007.

Another key area of growth identified is the domestic BPO market which if
tapped appropriately is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 50% over FY 2002-07. As
the Indian economy becomes more globally integrated, businesses in India are
beginning to face increasing levels of global competition and being push to
deliver world-class levels of products and services. Recognizing the need to
develop the domestic BPO industry, NASSCOM has launched various initiatives such
as road shows, roll out of NAC in Tier 2 &3 cities and job fairs etc. to
generate awareness and create opportunities for young talent to work in this
booming industry.

Another important area, which needs constant development, is the security
both for information as well as employees. The BPO sector also faces a challenge
in talent management both in terms of its suitability as well as its attraction,
development and retention. NASSCOM has taken the holistic view of the situation
and has rolled out above-mentioned initiatives in association with other
stakeholders to address these challenges and sustain the growth trajectory of
this sector.