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NASSCOM BPO Strategy Summit kicks off

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: NASSCOM, the premier trade body and ‘voice’ of the Indian IT-BPO industry, today kicked off the 10th annual NASSCOM BPO Strategy Summit 2008 in Bangalore.

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The annual two-day event has over 500 delegates and over 60 speakers representing over 300 companies, of the IT-BPO and other industries. Some of the international trade delegations and attendees include representatives from countries like Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, Bhutan, Egypt, Philippines, the UK and the USA.

NASSCOM BPO Strategy Summit 2008, BangaloreThe agenda of the summit includes discussion and debate on areas ranging from the state of the IT-BPO industry, redefining BPO – emerging opportunities, panels on domestic BPO and financial services segments, global delivery models, security and technology imperatives, role of captives, CTO and CEO insights, and will end with a valedictory panel on ‘BPO Industry: Thinking Global, Acting Local’.  The event will offer delegates a quick glimpse of an end-to-end view of the sector, its challenges and concerns and the road ahead.

NASSCOM also released the detailed findings from the NASSCOM - A.T Kearney study on ‘location roadmap for IT- BPO growth: assessment of 50 leading cities’ on the four locations from Karnataka namely Bangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, Mysore and Mangalore.

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As per the report findings, Bangalore has been classified as a leader location; Mangalore as a challenger location, Hubli-Dharwad and Mysore as aspirant locations.

Addressing the media on the sidelines of the Summit, Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM said: “We are delighted to present the 10th annual BPO Strategy Summit and hope that discussions at this year’s Summit will be as stimulating for the industry. We are also happy to announce the appointment of Vikram Talwar, Executive Chairman of EXL as the Chairman of the NASSCOM BPO Forum; he takes over from Pramod Bhasin, who is now the Vice Chairman of NASSCOM.”

“The Indian BPO industry is in an exciting phase of growth as it gears up to tap significant opportunities that the global economy presents. It is also working hard on improving its productivity further, to overcome challenges of infrastructure and inflation; along with support from the Government. We are very confident that the industry will succeed and NASSCOM will continue providing platforms for it to share best practices and collaborate,” he added.

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Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman NASSCOM and Deputy Chairman & Managing Director, Zensar said: “NASSCOM has defined six key agenda points for the year and the BPO firms with their huge employment contribution and potential are well positioned to take the lead in buiilding Collaboration and Community and demonstrating their prowess in skills development and inclusiveness. NASSCOM's initiatives in this area have already shown results and will be further strengthened during the year."

Pramod Bhasin, Vice Chairman NASSCOM and President & CEO, Genpact said: “The BPO segment has grown to the size it is in just over a decade, it is clearly the fastest growing segment in the overall offshore market. Labour arbitrage has been the key driver but over the past few years, talent, service quality, productivity and time to market have become key differentiators. The traditional notion of what BPO could deliver is gradually giving way to transformation-driven outlook and these changes present significant opportunities for the Indian BPO sector, however, there are challenges alongside as a result of the changing global dynamics. The need is to call for collaborative effort at the highest stakeholder levels to offer a growth environment for this hi growth potential segment”.

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Som Mittal, while presenting the findings of the NASSCOM A.T Kearney report NASSCOM-A.T Kearney study on the ‘location roadmap for IT- BPO growth’ said: “We are also happy to share the findings of the recent NASSCOM report conducted in partnership with AT Kearney on 50 leading locations for the IT-BPO sector, which includes four locations from Karnataka. These are indicative of the potential that the industry sees in this region -- beyond Bangalore, and of the investment that companies can make here. Given the recently constituted Government, we are hopeful that a favourable policy environment will emerge and help the IT sector develop further. NASSCOM and the industry will also present the recommendations and call to action to the Government, based on this report, shortly.”

The Indian BPO industry is maturing and rapidly spreading -– both in business and geographically employing 700,000 professionals and generating revenues of US $11 billion as of FY07-08. As per the NASSCOM Everest report, there is a potential for a 5 fold growth for the BPO sector in the next fiveyears. NASSCOM has also identified 50 cities which are poised to become IT-BPO destinations, given the right steps are taken by stakeholders.

NASSCOM also shared an update on the various initiatives underway across the country including the NASSCOM Assessment of Competence (NAC), NAC-Tech, National Skills Registry and other talent and skill building initiatives.