The Indian economy is on the upswing and mostly consumer-led. With companies across sectors like retail, real estate, telecom and BFSI going after the same customer, there is one factor which could help them beat competition — better and faster customer service.

Here’s where BPOs come in. This need has put the local Indian BPO industry on the fast track. According to Nasscom data, the domestic BPO market was estimated at Rs 6,600 crore in 2006 and is expected to grow to Rs 30,000 crore in 2011.

The segment is growing at about 40% CAGR. Says Firstsource Domestic Business head Sanjeev Sinha, "We see a lot of leading Indian brands wanting to differentiate themselves based on customer service – both back-office and front end services. They are now willing to invest in quality customer care and are eager to adopt global best practises.

We expect companies to partner with BPO players to ensure scalability and consistent service delivery." Stating that the potential of domestic BPO work continues to attract new players to partake in the economic growth and fulfill the huge demand, HTMT Global Solutions (HGSL) National Operations & International Business Development senior vice-president BN Narasimha Murthy adds, that "some of the key verticals that are experiencing huge growth include telecom, BFSI, retail, airlines & travel."

Experts opine that in-demand back office services include sales of credit cards, managing service centres and call centres and processing payrolls. Some of the companies who have outsourced work locally include Bharti Airtel, HP, Dish TV, Barclays and State Bank of India. This segment is also where the mid-sized firms like HTMT, Firstsource and Infovision are outracing their more well-known peers like Wipro BPO. They already account for a majority of the domestic BPO revenues though some largely-export-oriented players have now started to look at the Indian market to ward off the rupee impact. This group of companies also employ staff of between 3,000 and 9,000 people each focused on domestic clients. This figure is expected to grow rapidly in next two-three years. Source: Economics Times