Export rev of top 20 BPOs touches $6 bn in FY10

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Unfazed by the global economic slowdown, the Top 20 Indian BPO firms grew their combined exports earnings by 15 per cent, in the just concluded fiscal 2009-10, to touch revenues of $6.1 billion.

Though marginally lower than the growth of 17 per cent achieved in 2008-09, the BPO exports grew twice as fast compared to the 7.8 per cent growth achieved by the top 20 IT companies in the same period, according to the annual Dataquest Top 20 survey conducted by Dataquest, the flagship publication of CyberMedia.

The Dataquest Top 20 annual industry survey, now in its 23rd year, tracks the growth of IT and BPO industries and ranks the top companies by their revenue, said a press release.

Industry bellwether and the oldest BPO firm, Genpact grew at a modest 12 per cent to Rs 4592 crore (excluding IT revenues) to retain the top rank. The BPO division of TCS, ranked No. 2 by Dataquest, grew by a whopping 73 per cent to close the gap with Genpact. The recent acquisition of Citigroup’s captive subsidiary by TCS led to company’s high growth.

“The fact that there is not too much change in the ranking - none of the companies went up or down by more than two places - suggests that the industry is stabilizing,” said Shyamanuja Das, editor of Dataquest, who has been leading the BPO survey for several years.

Eleven of the Dataquest Top 20 BPO exports firms recorded double digits growth, while four registered negative growth. The rest grew between four to nine per cent.

Two new entrants to the Top 20 club the BPO divisions of Cognizant BPO and 3i Infotech led to the exit of Syntel's BPO division and vCustomer.

Nine of the Top 20 entities are divisions or subsidiaries of broader IT companies while the rest are pure play or predominantly BPO firms.

The Dataquest study brings out two major trends in the BPO industry. The first trend revolves around use of Intellectual Property based technology platforms. BPO firms are now creating their own technology platforms to service global customers.

The Dataquest analysts added that the BPO services, once popularly known as IT-enabled services, are now increasing turning out to be “IT-enhanced services”.

The survey brought out the fact that the “vanilla voice-based customer services” are now being increasingly serviced from call centers in the Philippines, including by the delivery centers set up there by the Indian BPO firms.

While the trend was emerging for some time, during 2009-10 the call center agents deployed by several Indian BPO firms in the Philippines grew to surpass the corresponding headcount in India.

“With Philippines becoming a preferred destination for vanilla voice BPO service, other locations are being explored as alternate nearshore location alternatives. Many Indian BPO firms have taken the lead in building delivery capabilities in these locations proving the robustness of the global delivery strategy,” said Shyamanuja Das, Editor of Dataquest.

Among the fastest growing companies this year were TCS BPO (73 per cent to Rs 3142 crore); 3i InfoTech (49 per cent to Rs 779 crore); Cognizant BPO (28 per cent to Rs 858 crore), Aegis BPO (23 per cent to Rs 1919 crore) and 24/7 Customer (18 per cent to Rs 660 crore).

Out of the eleven pure play BPO firms, five are listed (Genpact, WNS, Firstsource, Exl, Hinduja Global); two are privately held by promoters/PE firms (Intelenet, 24/7 Customer), two are subsidiaries of non-Indian companies (Convergys India and Xchanging India), and two are owned by large Indian corporate houses (Aegis and Aditya Birla Minacs).