Knowledge Process Outsourcing ( KPO ):
KPO is a component in BPO that has more of relation to knowledge outsourcing. Companies from service providing countries render knowledge related or information related work. This is done generally to save cost and time spent on the outsourced work. KPO provides domain based processes, business expertise and analytical skills. This is more than BPO in the sense that it involves more than outsourcing process expertise.
The key factor behind the emergence of KPO is the success achieved by Indian Companies in global outsourcing. Foreign companies have realized the cost-benefit factor and also the availability of knowledge pool in Indian sub-continent that had led them to outsource projects involving high-end knowledge as well.
Skilled & Talented Workforce:
The education system in India lays more stress on higher education, and specialization which produces skilled and talented workforce. This has produced the availability of trained professionals in IT, Engineering, Education, Medicine, Law, Architecture, Finance etc., who could ensure efficiency in operations and improved quality results. Apart from this domain specialization, language proficiency and computer skills enable the workforce to perform any complex task with more ease and efficiency.
KPO in India:
The survey released by Global Sourcing Now, estimates a total revenue of USD 17 billion by 2010 in the Global Knowledge Process Outsourcing ( KPO ) Industry. Almost 70% of this estimated revenue would be outsourced to India alone. India has already taken steps to increase the talented pool of workforce from 25, 000 employees as per the current statistics to 250, 000 by 2010.
India the preferred destination for KPO:
The survey conducted by NASSCOM ( National Association of Software and Service Companies ) in 2002 showed that that the Indian ITES – BPO in Banking and Financial Services performs better than its UK and US based service providers. The statistical measures taken for consideration are the total number of transactions processed, number of correct transactions processed, number of transactions processed per hour, resulting customer satisfaction, and the average speed of answering. The survey also indicated that more than 45% of service providers have high quality certifications like Six Sigma. This proves the quality consciousness and the frequent update of such standards to the internationally accepted standards in Indian BPOs. Indian BPOs are even acclaimed for quality management standards such as ISO ( International Organization for Standardization ) like ISO 9001:2000, ISO 9001:2001 and even the new CMMI framework.