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Source: www.indiaabroad.com

The Business Process Outsourcing Business in India is changing. It is no longer about answering phones, but has turned into more of automotive designing, insurance claim processes, mortgage loans, and so on and so forth.

A few years ago, 20-year old Sandhya S. with her chronic tonsillitis, could not even think of trying for a job in a BPO. She would have been unable to cope with the task of attending calls for 8-hours at a stretch.

Today, lack of employment opportunities is not an issue, as Sandhya is inundated with job offers, despite her throat ailment. No, she hasn’t found a magic cure; it is just Indian BPOs have begun to do business in very different ways, these days. The BPO scenario is changing in India, and how. When the BPO boom took off, in 1999 voice-related services contributed to 85% of the Indian BPO industry’s share of business. Seven years down the line, voice accounts for just 35%. Sunil Mehta, Vice President, NASSCOM, the industry body for Indian IT and BPO companies, agrees: “The services have moved from voice to non-voice like automotive design, insurance claim processes, mortgage loans and so on.”

In the 1990s, the starting point of BPOs, Indian BPOs offered many young graduates their first job. Fresh-out-of-college employees (called agents) were expected to cold call customers in US or Europe and chase down credit card defaulters for payments. Or, they were required to troubleshoot calls on issues ranging from PCs to Internet, travel services, and more.