Por Arijit Sengupta

Eu tenho uma aposta ongoing com meu Benny do COO que acontece ser chinês. Acredita que a indústria chinesa do Outsourcing do processo do negócio (BPO) comerá o lunch de India em poucos anos seguintes. I na uma mão foram sempre confiável que o empreendimento e a inovação Indian ajudarão à batida Indian de BPOs todos os concorrentes including o chinês. Até recentemente, eu nunca preocupei-me que eu posso realmente perder a aposta. Uma conversação recente com Sr. Roc Yang (CEO de Grupo dos dados de China, um chinês que principal BPO) me forçou a reconhecer para a primeira vez esse talvez Benny poderia ganhar a aposta após tudo.

Sr. Yang levantou diversas razões porque China pôde bater India na arena de BPO. Algumas destas razões que eu me tinha ouvido antes: abaixe taxas do churn do empregado, um salário eficaz mais baixo, e o infrastructure melhor. Quando China puder ter estas vantagens hoje, ou India dirige-se lhes tempo de excesso (como no exemplo do infrastructure melhor) ou China enfrentará os mesmos problemas que sua própria indústria de BPO desenvolve mais mais (como na caixa do churn do empregado).

Algum do Sr. do competidor dos fatores. Yang levantado (como uma abilidade de fornecer serviços end-to-end ou procedimentos operacionais mais sofisticados) é completamente possivelmente válido para sua companhia específica mas mim não pode imaginar que são verdadeiros para todo o BPOs chinês. Além disso, eu posso imaginar conversações com o CEOs de BPOs Indian que levantaria o exato mesmos fatores que as vantagens do competidor que os Indians aprecíam. Uma análise de quem seja direita é além do espaço deste blog. Most probably, only time will tell who is right on this issue.

One point that Mr. Yang highlighted however may turn out to be the secret weapon of the Chinese BPO industry. Contrary to popular perception, the Chinese BPO industry has existed for many years and quite possibly is as old as the Indian BPO industry. The reason that the Chinese have stayed under the radar is that they primarily serve the Chinese market. As Mr. Yang pointed out, because their customers are also Chinese they could never count on labor cost differentials as a critical factor in their business. Thus, out of necessity, they have had to be incredibly cost conscious. He believes that because the Indians have enjoyed a large labor cost differential relative to their customers, they have been much less labor efficient than the Chinese BPOs.

I must admit that many Indian BPOs often have an attitude that labor is cheap so we can always throw a lot of bodies at any problem. This has in many cases led to inefficient use of labor. If Chinese BPOs have truly figured out a way to be profitable in the absence of a labor cost advantage and are now shifting their attention to the US market then Indian BPOs may have cause for concern. An industry that is used to running lean and mean in their own country would have a huge advantage once they gain the additional advantage of the labor cost differential between China and the US. Look out India!

In reality, if the Chinese BPOs can truly bring labor-efficient solutions to the market, that would only spur Indian vendors to respond similarly. Due to the high employee churn rates and salary increases, Indian BPOs have already started to become more labor efficient. The entry of labor-efficient competitors from China would only accelerate the trend. I would expect to see even faster efficiency and accuracy improvements primarily via the adoption of new technologies and consistent processes across customers. This competition from China may just help spur the Indian vendors to the next stage in their evolution.

Arijit Sengupta, the Rational Outsourcing Blog and CEO, BeyondCore, Inc.