Seizing the opportunities of business outsourcing

Business process outsourcing (BPO), as Wikipedia describes it, is a form of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business function (or processes) to a third-party service provider. Originally, this was associated with manufacturing firms, such as Coca Cola that outsourced large segments of its supply chain. In the contemporary context, it is primarily used to refer to the outsourcing of services that can be done through the use of Information technology (IT). That is why some people call it as ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services). An internationally-renowned investment consultancy firm forecasted a couple of years back that the global BPO business would amount to US$220 billion by 2012. India, according to that forecast, will be in prime position to reap substantial benefits out of it. China, the Philippines and Malaysia in Asia were then expected to follow India. If Bangladesh could have fixed a target of grabbing, at least, 1.0 per cent of the total market share, then it would have certainly experienced a large boost in its foreign exchange earnings. This sector is very much lucrative compared to other ones as all the earnings from this service can mostly be retained domestically. The situation has somewhat changed in recent times about the prospects of future BPO business because of new technological developments like that of cloud computing and other relevant areas. However, the threat of a new phase of global recession, in the context of the financial crisis in the Euro-zone and wider fallouts from it, the unemployment problem in the USA along with the emerging new trade protectionist trends etc., has made the scenario about the BPO somewhat uncertain. Even then, the BPO still continues to be a major source of export earnings for a number of developing economies. But the situation in Bangladesh remains practically unchanged. We have not been able to prepare ourselves enough for seizing the opportunities in this sector. BTRC (Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) had started issuing licenses for setting up BPO companies from as far back as 2008. The cost of each license was then only Tk 5,000 with provision for extension of its duration of three to five years. For call centre entrepreneurs, BTCL had stated then that it was ready to give leased internet connection at discounted rates. But have things changed in any positive direction since then? Very little noticeable change has happened. Even the access to internet facility, broadband and other modern digital technological facilities have not witnessed much of any progress. The best examples of BPO in our country could have been the call centres. These are the customer-care call centres of different cell phone operators. Mobile phone users can call for help, to the helpline. There are also few other instances of BPO in our country. However, we are now able to do software development outsourcing only on a limited scale. Only a limited number of foreign investors who are either directly or under joint collaboration, have opened their offices on a limited scale. Substantial investments, both local and foreign, have not yet been witnessed here. Export business relating to BPO has not also grown to any marked extent. Only a few local programmers are in employment in this technology-intensive sector in Bangladesh, with attractive compensation packages given to them. The track record of Bangladesh until now in the IT sector is unimpressive. Bangladeshi programmers have otherwise been observed to be good at problem solving. Software development cost here is comparatively lower than those of other countries. Graphics design and animation are also two other sectors that have otherwise good prospects for being added to Bangladesh's BPO basket. Some random information says that the development of a five minute animation in our country cost one-fifth of what they cost even in some of neighbouring countries. Despite such pluses, we are yet to make any headway in this sector. Time is ripe to identify the reasons behind this, in concrete terms. The whole situation needs to be carefully assessed and this should embrace areas like languistic skill and human resource-related problems, technological infrastructure-related constraints, business environment-connected issues, policy-related problems and anything else. And an action plan should be formulated on an urgent footing to help address each of these problems. There is no denying that BPO is very much technology-driven. The highly potential BPO sector, according to some credible reports, requires 10 per cent of technical expertise, 50 per cent of marketing expertise at the international level and the rest is dependent on the ability to perform the contract. Bangladesh has otherwise enough manpower. What it needs now most to do is to train and prepare this manpower appropriately to serve the customers.