India the Hub for Knowledge Process Outsourcing

chillibreeze writer —Rashmi Nayak

Knowledge Process Outsourcing or ‘KPO’ is a fairly new concept where you have well qualified employees, called ‘knowledge workers’, using their academic qualifications in the outsourcing sector. This is unlike the BPO sector, where there are underemployed MBA’s, engineers, teachers and other professionals who just man helpdesks.

So what exactly is a KPO? Some people say that a KPO is just another stream of a BPO where the work involved calls for some measure of expertise in the respective field. A certain level of academic skill is also required as a KPO provides a value service to a client. It also requires certain levels of judgmental skills in exercising opinions and understanding and delivering the clients requirements.

The whole concept has arisen from the fact that there is a shortage of knowledge workers in the United States. An example is, the shortage of tutors that they face. Close to 40% of US students fail in mathematics. Now the networked world that we live in helps such students find tutors who help them improve their grades.

At “Career Launcher”, an online education company, which provides online tutoring, the teacher and the students work on an electronic whiteboard, where both can write. They can also speak with one another. The participants also use a digital pen to facilitate writing on the whiteboard. While the teacher knows the name of the student, the teacher remains anonymous.

However, it is not just education as KPO is mushrooming everywhere. According to a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) study, India is all set to emerge as the global KPO hub and is set for explosive growth. By the year 2010, India will dominate close to 70% of the global KPO sector. Apart from education, the other areas are engineering design, biotech and pharmaceuticals, basic data search, integration and management.

According to the Nasscom Strategic review for 2005, other latent potential areas for KPO include, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, legal support, intellectual property rights, design and development for automotive and aerospace industries, animation and graphics for the entertainment sector.

However, since India is still seen as a BPO call center country, the key challenge lies in convincing clients of our capabilities in doing high end work and establishing credibility through a proven track record, which is of utmost importance. Delivering quality consistently through the right people and complying with the required international regulations can do this.

Since India has a vast amount of graduates and professionals who are technically sound, the prospects of KPO are very bright. The country’s vast number of CAs, doctors, MBAs, lawyers, engineers and teachers are definitely going to ensure that India dominates the KPO sector.

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Rashmi writes for chillibreeze.

India the Hub for Knowledge Process Outsourcing

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