subject: Decentralized Business Process Outsourcing: The Way Ahead [print this page] Decentralized Business Process Outsourcing: The Way Ahead
Business process outsourcing hubs can only be found in cities. This is the fact that BPO investors want to be part of many urban myths. The centralized holding of call center units only in the heart of big cities is not the goal anymore. If NASSCOM studies are anything to go by, you would soon see answering service units dotting the rural and suburban areas of countries like India. The rural areas hold a lot of promise, feels the industry experts. After conducting market researches all over their holdings and the nearby towns, they have come to this conclusion. The goal of BPO can be further realized if they manage to decentralize holdings into newer, broader avenues.
There are certain advantages that business process outsourcing units can tap in the rural areas. First up, you can get cheaper labor. Thanks to competition for market share even among the skilled workforce, the salaries of BPO agents have gone up substantially. In these lean months, the expenditures would be something any call center would be careful about. Moving out to rural areas gives them an opportunity to hire cheaper manpower. They can then be trained to work as answering service agents. The language could be a barrier because not many of them would be able to speak English fluently. But they will be able to write the language fluently. This can be utilized by call center services like email and chat support.
The next big advantage is establishment. Business process outsourcing units need enough space for setting up a call center. The seating arrangements should be enough to optimize the whole answering service process. Unless you have enough members on your inbound call center team, you cannot take up projects that have a high call volume. It would be foolhardy to say no to lucrative call center services projects because you don't have the required number of agents! The rural areas can offer you a sizeable work office space without burning a whole in your pocket. The amount of money that you save here can be used to purchase other requirements of a new business, like movable assets.
The administrators of these potential business process outsourcing areas are not taking this lightly. They are active in building the infrastructure. To set up a call center hub you need roads and transport. You need telecommunication facilities like high-speed internet and phone lines. Bureaucracy niggles are being looked after as well. Having a BPO hub can solve multiple problems of the rural administration. Foreign currency is only of the incentives. Answering service facilities can provide employment to many of the educated youth. These areas are historically known to be infested with unemployment issues.
When the business process outsourcing work began in the rural areas, women had trouble going to work because of social barriers. Now the social fabric of these places is more comfortable with the idea of working women. In fact, the women answering service agents end up making more money than the men who work in the same BPO sector or maybe even in other industries! This trend promises to be a healthy one for all involved.
