Indian Business Outsourcing Operators (BPO) operators gobbled up 88% of the total offshore-outsourced work from the US securities industry (stock market brokerage sector) in the year 2002. The figure is expected to go up to 92% in the current year. Business Process Outsourcing and IT Enabled Services (ITES) sector is demonstrating to the third world that globalization that generally worked against them is now offering their nations a chance to leapfrog the economic chasm that global development paradigm created for them.
The first phase of India?s information technology success story crafted on abundant manpower base with deep technical skills is slowly being rewritten with a focus on knowledge-of-any-nature strategy; business, financial, legal or academic. Opportunity is not restricting itself to a bunch of software geniuses; it is reaching the common man. Bandwidth-commonsense-knowledge and continued pressure on US corporate to maintain bottom line is sustaining it. From Data Capture and Conversion to Payroll Processing to Accounts Receivable Management, BPO is already happening in Mauritius. Why is it that despite the apparent viability of the BPO industry, Mauritius has not been able to do an EPZ with it? Would BPO stay as a peripheral activity or germinate an eco-system creating thousands of jobs and opportunities for local entrepreneurs? The opportunity is unprecedented. Over 3.3 million jobs and $136 billion in wages are expected to move to countries like India, Russia, China and Philippines before the year 2015. A widely publicized report from Forrester Research Inc says that of the 3.3 million, nearly one million would be IT related jobs. BPO and ITES would form the largest chunk of jobs moving offshore driven by a mix of local competence and wage differentials in developing countries. A survey by Deloitte Research, an arm of Deloitte Consulting published in April 2003, on the other hand puts the figure at 2 million jobs and $356 billion of ope-rations moving offshore for the financial services companies alone. South Africa, Ireland and Australia are most likely to benefit from this wave of shifting work overseas with India leading the list of most preferred destination. The survey also showed that 75% of the banks and insurance companies in US and Europe intend to transfer offshore, functions like application development, coding and programming, accounting and finance, contact support and call-center operations. Despite a strong reaction in US against outsourcing that is inducing job losses for local Americans, bottom-line driven US corporations are aggressively pursuing offshore strategies. The business case to Outsource is irresistible with per worker savings over US$50,000 per annum. The much talked about New Jersey Bill that seeks to prevent outsourcing of government contracts outside of the country would hardly make any difference to the burgeoning industry. Creating and Sustaining a BPO industry employing 100,000 people and generating US$ 500 million annually over the next five years would be a reasonable target for Mauritius, in an international market that would outsource two million jobs from US alone. What is required to divert a small percentage (five per cent) of this opportunity towards the Mauritian shores should be uppermost on the policy makers mind. Ebene Cybercity and the Cyber tower are good beginning. Filling it with BPO operators is a humble mission. Building and sustaining a BPO eco-system is the challenge. What should be the profile of these 100,000 jobs that Mauritius could potentially attract? All kinds of jobs would be outsourced. The education, training and competence of our job seekers would indirectly determine the economic status of the country. If we pitch ourselves as providers of School Certificate and Higher School Certificate holders, we shall attract lower value Call Center jobs. A nation of graduates, post-graduates and PhDs would attract high value research jobs. The choice between creating a Rs 15,000 per month job (US$500) or a Rs 50,000 per month (US$ 1,500) would significantly impact the socio-economic future of the country .

Can Mauritius be an ideal BPO location?

Adequate and cost effective infrastructure with multiple levels of telecommunication redundancy is one part. Education, entrepreneurship and work culture is another. Culture seems to be an important determinant on offshore location by large outsourcing companies. Apart from low wage and flexible labor laws, quality of work done is very important. As one American CIO remarked: ?India is a culture more focused on quality and process than America is. They tend to be much more disciplined?. Whereas attrition rates in the industry are as high as 70% in the US, in Philippines they are less than 10%. A mindset that sought protection, preferential tariffs and government support needs change. Aggression and innovation must replace it. There are numerous opportunities for local businessmen. Immediate results could be obtained by way of joint ventures and franchising arrangements between Mauritian companies and US or Indian companies, looking a risk mitigation and business continuity planning. HCL Technologies, one of India?s largest BPO operator that recently acquired a British Telecom Call Center in Belfast (Ireland) followed it up by another acquisition, a Call Center in Malaysia and is actively pursuing acquiring one in Philippines. Pursuing such Indian companies makes a lot of sense.
Well-established Indian BPO operators are aggressively looking at multilingual capability along with the possibility of farming out work for risk mitigation and business continuity. Most of the multilingual work is presently being outsourced to Australia. Mauritius can position itself as a credible alternative.
Local business people need to educate themselves, negotiate the sharpest learning curve and take a grab at the opportunity. The perception that only large seat BPO operations are viable is no longer true. Value proposition per seat is more important than the number of seats. The possibility of scaling a BPO operation quickly is a part of investors? demands and the availability of business parks and cyber parks shall be a definite plus for Mauritius. There is a definite opportunity out there. It only requires the go-vernment, policy makers, politicians, businessmen, industrialists, entrepreneurs, professionals, educationists, parents and students to focus on one single question. Those 3.3 million jobs are up for grabs. How do we get them?

Baljinder Sharma Project Director CDAC School of Advanced Computing [email protected]