Business Process Outsourcing Goes Rural

Although the concept of business process outsourcing has evolved in the urban areas but it is slowly making its way towards the villages. BPO firms are constantly thriving in different rural areas of South India and in the years to come they will experience a considerable growth. The BPO sector of India first caught the eyes of the people living in the four metropolitan cities of the country- Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore, and even the NCR region. Outsourcing of business process was entirely an unknown concept in the rural areas until the recent times. With times changing, focus has shifted on the functioning of call centers in rural areas.


The origin of rural BPO firms can be traced back to their establishment in parts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh backed up by some giant IT concerns. Till then proper infrastructure and technology were not available for setting up BPO companies in those regions. But today, technology and infrastructure is no more a barrier for the development of the rural BPO industry. Besides, the cost of work space in the urban areas are increasing on a constant basis which is pushing people to set up their call center business in the interior locations of the country. The worldwide economic downfall has caused the companies to reduce their costs, a greater portion of which is involved in the salary of the workers. The rural call centers involve less expense in comparison to their urban counterparts since the employees there work at relatively lower wages.

Recession is compelling the multi-national companies to search for domestic BPO markets; while on the other hand, the multinationals are encouraging the growth of rural call centers. The rural BPO sector cannot be turned into a complete international market since they are not getting the right kind of exposure. But very soon they will be able to catch up with the urban market. Frequent interactions between the rural call centers and their customers will help them in developing an adequate set of skills that are sufficient for the existing customer support centers. Besides, the level of attrition in the rural BPO agencies is relatively lesser than that of their urban counterparts. The reason behind it is that people from similar villages come to work in the company and guarantee a better commitment to the company. Switching off from jobs is a rare possibility with these employees.

The rural call centers enjoy the privilege functioning with dedicated professional who are well qualified in their job. This helps them in creating a better customer relationship that is considered essential for their business. Previously the rural sector of the BPO industry would mostly deal with data entry operations. But nowadays they are also handling voice based regional processes and low-end international processes as well. The growth of business process outsourcing in the suburbs is getting hindered due to a couple of factors. Firstly, the training of the employees and continuous supply of power involve high operational costs. These minor obstacles will soon move out of their way and the industry will continue to flourish in rural areas of the country.

Courtesy: www.articlesbase.com