The term “business process outsourcing” did not bear much importance for business organizations, until the dawn of the third millennium. The trend of outsourcing entered the scene with the recruitment of vendors from the developing nations for fixing the Y2K bug that had hit the developed nations. Actually the virus or the bug did not hit the computer; it was just an assumption of the people in the developed countries that made them hire Indian vendors. BPO is the abbreviation used for the term that has been mentioned above. It is a process that involves the business organizations outsourcing their business needs to the third world countries. Most of these organizations seeking to fulfill the business needs are mainly located in the developed nations of the western world.
The BPO industry is mainly based in the countries of the third world, which are characterized by huge growth in population and underemployment. Most of the people in these countries suffer from underemployment that greatly affects their standard of living. Besides, the people of these countries are initially very skilled and a little training can help them in improving their skill sets, which can be tapped for being used in the BPO operations. This has enabled these nations to emerge as popular destinations in the market of business process outsourcing. Skilled labor is easily available in these countries and that too, at a cheaper rate. Therefore, it has been possible for the third world countries to provide effective business solutions to their offshore clients at a reasonable price that they can easily afford. The foreign companies are thus, reaping huge benefits from the BPO industry of these nations.
India, China, Philippines and other African and Asian sub-continents possess huge population from diverse cultures and languages of the world. They can speak regional languages other than English and are therefore, capable of catering to business needs of people from all corners of the world. Customer base is a necessity for all kinds of businesses, be it large or small. Here comes the need of the BPO firms. They help the business organizations in building up a wide customer base through their excellent customer support services. People from diverse cultures in the developing nations, have facilitated the growth of the multilingual call centers. In a way, these call centers are also acting as a platform for the young students that graduate every year from numerous educational institutions of these nations.
The BPO sector has come up with a wide array of jobs based on the various services that it offers. The services can be categorized into outbound and inbound call center services. These services require expertise of varying age, right from the fresher to the experienced level. The huge volume of incoming and outgoing calls at the customer support centers need to be handled with efficiency. This requires a huge workforce that can be easily obtained from these densely populated nations. The outsourcing industry has contributed a lot towards the economic development of these nations. The revenues generated by the call center companies have helped in modifying the infrastructure of the developing countries.
