“The KPO/LPO segment will continue to grow globally despite the economic slowdown”

“The KPO/LPO segment will continue to grow globally despite the economic slowdown”

Vishaal Shah
Posted On Monday, June 08, 2009 at 11:51:00 AM

Lokendra Tomar, COO – Asia Pacific, Integreon comments on the growth of the KPO/LPO segment in the present economic scenario


1) How has the global economic meltdown affected your industry – globally and in India?

The global economic meltdown has had both positive as well as negative impact on the outsourcing industry, globally as well as in India. Some of the primary customers have either gone bankrupt or seen contraction in their business, which in turn has had a negative impact on the outsourcing industry. But the positives that have emerged from this economic meltdown far outweigh the negatives. More and more companies globally have recognised the need for outsourcing, and are now open to look at further outsourcing opportunities, which has helped the outsourcing industry immensely.


We are seeing a significant shift with companies now accelerating their outsourcing interest and activity. The level of outsourcing and the complexity of the work getting outsourced is expected to increase manifold, both on the legal outsourcing front as well as in knowledge process outsourcing.


Overall, we see continued growth for the KPO/LPO segment globally as well as in India despite the economic slowdown.


2) How would you comment on the past one and a half years in terms of recruitment in your industry?

The industry has seen some slowdown in the rate of recruitment over the past one and half years. There are two main reasons for that.


Firstly, there has been some slowdown in acquiring new businesses in the last 3-4 quarters. Similarly, outsourcing related decisions of clients have been volatile over the last few quarters, wherein few of the clients have gone bankrupt, resulting in the teams working with those clients getting redeployed internally for new clients instead of the need to for fresh recruitment for these new clients.


Secondly, outsourcing companies have started focusing on cost management and higher productivity. Companies are adopting processes and technologies to enable optimal utilisation of the current employees within the organisation, before starting to hire fresh.


3) Till a year back companies were investing heavily on HR. What will be the trend now according to you?

Good stable companies would continue to invest on HR, and there will not be any change to this trend. We strongly believe in the need of investing on HR to build and retain the best talent in the industry, and we have made no change to this even during this economic crisis. We have continued our investment in training, personnel development and career enhancement programs. Also, we continue to foster innovation amongst our employees through reward and recognition programs.


4) What would be the advice you would give potential job seekers in India right now?

My advice to potential job seekers is that they need to be little patient, and not take decisions in a haste. They should also take this opportunity to upgrade their skills and broaden their knowledge base. Students who are just graduating also need to be patient as not all of them are going to be employed immediately. However, they too need to utilise this time in a prudent manner and improve their skills and make themselves more employable.


5) Which are some of the old job profiles that you would back to continue to hold importance over the next five years?
Some of the old job profiles that would continue to hold importance over the next five years shall be the ones related to processing of complex outsourcing work like Knowledge services or Document review, wherein there would be a need for specialised professionals like lawyers। In fact these profiles will not only hold its importance, but also see an increase in demand in the future. Also, there would be a demand for people working in the Education sector in future.

Courtesy: TIMESASCENT