Global BPO market: Where does BD stand?

The idea of Outsourcing came from American glossary "outside resourcing" is also known as Business Process Outsourcing (BPO); the process of hiring another individual or company, either domestically or internationally, to handle business activities for you. It has become a common business practice that allows small and medium-sized businesses to reduce certain costs like non-core business expenses, high-taxes, labour cost and strong govt. regulations.
The most popular categories for freelancers or outsourcing providers are the following -- Inbound Customer Service, Outbound Telemarketing, Web Design & Development, SEO & Online Marketing, Back Office/Admin Support, Virtual Assistant services, Accounting and HR Management, Marketing and Sales Support.
In Asia as well as globally India and the Philippines have both been popular destinations for BPO by global companies. Our neighbour country India crosses $100 billion, Philippines $25b, Vietnam $5b, Pakistan $2b 0and Sri Lanka has reached $1b in recent year whereas Bangladesh stand behind less than a billion dollar, around $600m. South Asian countries has the most potential to create strong network of delivery chain. On the other hand, Europe is facing a shortage of affordable skilled workers while the global economic climate of developed nations such as -- the increasing debt of US is poised to force the companies to deeply collaborate with Asia.
 Bangladesh is the 44th largest market-based economy. Goldman Sachs has included Bangladesh in Next Eleven after BRIC. According to the IMF, Bangladesh's economy is the second fastest growing major economy of 2016 of 7.1%. In recent years, Bangladesh has been recognised by a US company AT Kearney, a leading Management consultancy firm, as the 26th best destination for IT outsourcing.
Bangladesh is constantly growing and drawing global attention of the developed countries to outsource their IT & ITES products and hiring hundreds thousands of freelancers by using online works marketplace like Upwork, Freelancers, Fiverr and Bangladeshi only local marketplace Belancer. Approximately 60,0000-80,0000 freelancers registered and working on different marketplace and already secured top ten positions in different skill categories.
Chief architect of Digital Bangladesh Mr. Sajeeb Wajed along with ICT Division and its youngest Minister Mr. Zuanid Ahmed Palak targeted to reach $5 billion outsourcing revenue by 2021. Internally we have been active with summits, events, program such as Digital World with BASIS, and BPO Summit with BACCO throughout the country to create massive awareness to connect young people to make Bangladesh is the next IT destination and convert labour intensive economy to knowledge intensive economy to celebrate Golden Jubilee of Bangladesh. We have also successfully reached several milestones including tax exemption until 2024 for IT and ITES companies, reduction of internet backbone and bandwidth cost from 27,000 to 625 Taka/ MBPS in last eight years, establishment of more than 2000 Sheikh Russell Digital Lab nationally and building 12 Software Park and many more. Govt. also has taken special scheme under Skill & Employment program to train and employ about 2 million young people.
Continuing the progress, we should boldly address the challenges to flourish BPO industry in Bangladesh. According to Gartner, the main obstacles are infrastructure, language skill, data and IP rights. If we focus on the granularity of the obstacles, the following issues come into play -- A. Power: There has been many steps to boost power generation. However we still require more to meet national demands. B. Infrastructure: Nationwide broadband connectivity, high speed internet, proper work environment are the pillar required for BPO industry. C. Skill: There has been huge gap between industry and academia. We tend to depend too much on academic output rather than on intellectual creativity. Good News is that Govt. has taken huge step for job skill& employ under popular scheme i.e SEIP, LICT and LEDP. D. Language: In the age of globalisation, we can't just avoid international language since most of our target clients speak English. Hence, we need language training related initiatives. E. Research: Bangladesh ICT industry requires in-depth industry research to determine demands and supply gap as well decide upon solid data source. F. Roadmap: Govt. has included ICT in the 7th five-year planning first time but now this needs a long term milestone based execution plan to implement on time also track the progress with all stake holders. G. Synergy: ICT Division has already taken significant and required steps to create  synergy between trade associations BASIS, BACCO, ISPAB, E-Cab to work and meet vision 2021. However, we need proper implementation of such initiatives and planning. H. Awareness: ICT Division has taken lead to create the awareness of ICT is our future and spread to root level.  I. Brand Bangladesh: Alike Philippines for Call Center destination, Sri Lanka for Accounting, Bangladesh needs to work hard into creating a global signature and identity in couple of skills or industries like marketing or designs where millions of people will work. J. National Skill Database: It is important to have a comprehensive skill database to understand and determine the demand and supply. K. Marketplace: International online freelancing marketplace size is $4.6 billion in different skill categories on Upwork, Freealancers, Fiverr and others. However, our only local marketplace belancer.com has delivered $ 0.35 Million after one year after its launching. Now we've to collect huge works from the global market. L. Product Driver Creative Economy: Bangladesh should work on to developing its own products. M. National IT Capacity: In order to develop own capacity of Bangladeshi technically skilled workers, Govt. should give subsidies and supporting packages who will work on high value products. N. Women at Work: There has been a significant number of women dropping out from educational institutes and workplaces. We need to dig deeper in this issue and try to include millions of educated women on outsourcing work. O. Access to Finance: There is no suitable financial packages designed solely for BPO companies, which should be addressed immediately. P. Local Market: Our local market size is more than 160 million dollar which is also diverse to develop our own eco-system.
No doubt we have numerous activities going on in every sub-sector of IT including e-commerce, e-governance, computer networking, Internet, web browsing, web applications, multimedia product development etc. Now we just need more focus on capturing the global BPO market share while aligning all our initiatives and addressing the above mentioned issues.

The author is the Founder & CEO of Belancer.com, an online marketplace for employers and freelancers to connect and collaborate remotely. He can be reached at: [email protected]