The visit of President Barack Obama to India, a trip that concluded recently, opened up some new channels in the BPO sector. By business process outsourcing, we generally understand business firms in USA or Europe outsourcing their non-core business work to the call centers of India or other third world countries like Brazil or even Nigeria. The global recession has changed all that. Business firms in USA have become so dependent on the offshore units and the cost structure favors them so much that the domestic call center units are going dry. These units don't have work and hundreds of telemarketing units in USA had to close shop because there were no projects. The unemployment percentage began to shoot up. Ultimately it touched 10%. That's when the US administration decided to curb offshore call center services and bring back jobs.
The steps taken by the Obam administration were alarming for telemarketing services in India and several other third world countries.With the President of America visiting, the delegates and business owners of the Indian call center sector wanted to interact with the President and find out what he intended to do about the future of business process outsourcing. They were waiting for Obama to clearly speak out about his policies and plans. They were not disappointed. The President may have spoken out against the process of using offshore call centers for getting work done, but on Indian soil he spoke differently. He was insistent that the process of work flow cannot be uni-dimensional anymore. He dubbed India as not an emerging power but a power that has already emerged. Amid other political roles, he was also keen on business ties with India. That includes work and knowledge sharing in the BPO sector.
President Barack Obama was confident that the creation of about 50,000 jobs back in USA with Indian investments worth 10-15 billion dollars would soften the country's stand about offshore BPO outsourcing. In a sort of flip in stance, he categorically mentioned that the creation of telemarketing jobs in USA would ensure knowledge sharing that will benefit the Indian customer service industry. His stance is understandable. While he cannot openly admit the fact that Indian business firms can outsource their call center services to American call centers, he cannot deny the considerable number of jobs that such an investment has managed to generate. The best news for the telemarketing sector is that there isn't anyone the more powerful of the two anymore, if you go by what Obama says. It's an equal sharing of work, knowledge and revenue.
The two-way flow of work in business process outsourcing is something that will dispel all talks of offshore call center units being totally cut off from the profit making business. The Indian call center industry felt relieved to learn that there won't be any serious ban on outsourcing, nor will there be any levy of heavy taxes. It does seem ideal that both countries will contribute equally towards creating more jobs and also act as consumer markets for those telemarketing projects. As Obama put it, it's a "win-win situation".
