Everest upbeat on outsourcing

PRACHI VERMA / New Delhi

Despite the backlash on outsourcing in the US, India still remains a preferred destination. Capitalising on the potential of India in outsourcing, Everest Group, an outsourcing consultancy firm, is helping global companies outsource work worth $1 billion to India over a period of five years.

“We are bringing in eight clients to India who are looking at outsourcing various processes ranging from IT, business process outsourcing (BPO), human resources, finance and accounting and claims processing,” Everest Group chief executive officer Peter Bendor-Samuel said.

These companies fall into the following sectors—pharmaceuticals, hospital systems, retail, manufacturing, airlines and insurance. “All these companies will have an IT and BPO component apart from other segments,” he said.

Categorising the companies in India that handle the outsourced work, Bendor placed them in three segments: multinationals, independent top five software services vendors and VC-led firms.

“Competition has been fierce leading to pressure on billing rates. We expect the billing rates to fall further benefiting companies that are looking at outsourcing to India,” he said.

Everest is also looking at carrying out research on outsourcing in India. When asked about competition from countries such as China and Ireland to the Indian BPO industry, Bendor said, “Other countries are not so capable as India when it comes to lingual efficiency and scalability option. India, still has a vast pool of labour waiting to be tapped.”