|
The rural BPO began to take root in India almost three years back, when GramIT, Desicrew, Fostera among others set up centers across villages in South India. What began as an experiment, has now started to gain momentum. Currently, there are at least fifty such centers operating not just across south Indian villages but also in rural north India. Most rural BPO centers have quite aggressive expansion plans. The exhibit below provides details and expansion plans of some of these rural BPOs:
Rural BPO
|
Details |
| Fostering Technologies in Rural Area (FOSTeRA) |
- Established in 2007 by District of Rural Development Agency (DRDA)
- Companies in telecom and banking outsource help desk, credit card processing, form filling and editing
- Plan to increase capacity from the present 25 to about 500 by the end of October
|
| Desicrew Solutions |
- Incubated by RTBI of IIT-Madras, DesiCrew was spun off as a commercial entity in February 2007 with three employees each in four units
- The individual units broke even in mid-2008
- By the end of 2010, DesiCrew plans to expand its workforce to 1,000 people and establish a pan-India presence
|
| Uday |
- An initiative of the community services arm of Tata Group
- Over 200 employees at two BPO centers at Mithapur in Gujarat and Babrala in UP. The Babrala call center provides support for Tata Indicom customers in UP
- Aims to hire 5,000 people over the next few years
|
| SourcePilani |
- Set up in 2007, backed by Goenka Foundation and Birla Institute of Technology and Science (Pilani)
- Services provided include Medical transcription services, call center customer support
- Plans to increase headcount to 100 by the end of 2010 and then sell the franchise to a village cooperative
|
RuralShores Business Services
|
- Lok Capital LLC, a Mauritius-based VC fund, has invested in Bangalore-based RuralShore Business Services
- Services include data capture, documents processing, expense processing, Image indexing, reports generation, trend analysis
- Plans to set up 500 centers across the country in six years to offer services for microfinance institutions
|
| B2R Technologies |
- Aavishkaar Micro Capital Venture Fund, which focuses on social micro enterprises has invested in B2R technologies
- First delivery center is at Orakhan in Uttarakhand has 34 team members
- Plans to set up hundred ’50-seat delivery centers’ within seven years
|
| HDFC |
- In July 2008, HDFC Bank set up a BPO center at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh
- Approx. 550 employees are involved in data capturing and indexing. The center handles 22,000 applications/day
|
| eGramIT |
- eGramIT employs about 400 rural youth in 3 villages of Andhra Pradesh
- Services include claims processing, data cleansing, digitization, etc.
|
Source For Change
|
- Based in Bagar, Rajasthan is an all-women rural BPO
- Founded by Indicorps Fellows and is an initiative of the Grassroots Development Laboratory through the Piramal Foundation
|
Source: ValueNotes Research
Apart from the initial, entrepreneurial and social drive from the private sector towards setting up rural BPOs, some state governments are also encouraging rural BPO centers by providing incentives. In its initial phase, the Karnataka State government has incentivised setting up of four rural BPO centers:
- Srirangapatna, in Mandya set up by MPro Solutions
- Gundlupet in Chamarajanagar set up by Intech
- Shiggaon in Haveri set up by Dhrithi Infotech Services
- Salgame in Hassan set up by Arman Infotech
In its next phase, sixteen more rural BPO centers are expected to be set up. These are likely to become functional by December-end with 100 employees each. The Karnataka state government is reportedly providing financial incentive of Rs 20 lakh and training incentive of Rs 10,000 per employee for setting up these 100-seat centers.
Overall, the rural BPO appears to be gaining strength, not just as a social venture but as a business enterprise. Growing interest from VC investors is an indicator of this. Though skepticism regarding quality and connectivity is prompting some companies to adopt a wait and watch attitude before accepting the model whole-heartedly; lower costs and lower attrition are definitely the USP of rural BPO centers. Going forward, several larger Indian BPOs are expected to tilt in favor of the benefits of rural BPO, which may spur acquisitions of the most compatible suitors – and when this phenomenon gains momentum, the VC investors will look to cash out. Until then…the next couple of years are set to witness a boom in expansions and investments in rural BPO.
|
