The BPO industry is keen on developing a common standard

Source: http://www.businessworld.in/index.php/Information-Technology/Setting-The-Bar.html

The BPO industry is keen on developing a common standard
M. RAJENDRAN
11 July 2008
Illustration By Anthony Lawrence

Inevitably, it is competition that forces better standards. Faced with growing competition from countries such as Ireland and the Philippines, the ITES/BPO (information technology enabled services/ business process outsourcing) industry in India is now willing to develop a single standard for recruiting universally acceptable candidates. “We as an industry have failed till now, and need to develop various levels of competence as a standard,” says the pioneer of the Indian BPO industry, Raman Roy, chief executive officer of Quattro, an ITES company. “That way, customers can choose a company that would meet their demand.”
English language skills, commonly seen as the most obvious area requiring attention, is not the only thing on the mind of industry peers. Common standards are also sought for recruitment, due diligence and employee security. In addition, software majors are working with the BPO industry to evolve a common standard for the software it uses.
The subject has critical value for BPOs as they spend crores of rupees annually, and lose valuable time in training and re-training executives. Industry estimates put the average cost that a BPO company ( 200-300 seats) spends on training at Rs 5 lakh-10 lakh per month. Therefore, a universal standard holds considerable promise.
“We need a standard that can test skills in speaking, writing, communicating and listening, not just English [as a language],” says a senior executive responsible for recruitment at Steria India (formerly Xansa), an ITES company based in Noida in Uttar Pradesh.
“The BPO industry should also look at a screening software that can identify candidates and test their integrity. If the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) can offer all this, it can become an industry standard.” TOEIC is a global standard for measuring English language skills for business; the test is conducted by Princeton-based ETS, a private, non-profit organisation for educational measurement and research, primarily through testing.
Part of the reason why the Indian ITES industry did not bother with a single standard for over a decade was that it was raining business. Now, fears of a strong rupee alongside competition from other countries have made a single standard essential. “The situation is ripe for India to take the lead amongst global BPOs by setting a single standard,” says Roy.
India’s software body Nasscom (National Association of Software Services Companies) launched an initiative in 2006 called Assessment of Competence (NAC). “The association has taken the employment pyramid approach to understand the industry’s skills requirement better and [to] create specific education and development initiatives [on this] basis,” says Som Mittal, president of Nasscom. However, Mittal could not provide any specific number with regard to companies that have accepted NAC as a standard.
“The initiative by Nasscom has failed to address key issues and, hence, the search continues for an all-industry acceptable standard,” says Muneed Ahemad Khan, head of human resource and training with Call2Connect India, which provides ITES services to Tata Teleservices, Airtel and Vodafone. According to Khan, the key issue that Nasscom failed to address include security, written and accent skills.
Still, if the current momentum to establish that elusive standard is sustained, the Indian BPO industry could soon come out with an international standard, says Khan. Necessity is the mother of standards, too.
(Businessworld Issue 15-21 July 2008)