Pakistan luring Indian BPO executives

According to industry sources, people from call centers in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore are being hired by Pakistan-based BPOs to help in training, migration and integration and already 18-20 Indian BPO trainers are working in two newly-established call centers in Pakistan.

The Pakistan government is going all out to attract investment in the ITEs sector and at present there are 123 international and domestic call centers in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, with 30 more in the pipeline. On an average, these call centers employ around 3000 agents.

Pakistan Software Exports Board (PSEB), a government body set up to promote outsourcing, forecasts that the BPO business will grow by at least 45 percent annually in coming years. And, to assist the growth, the government has announced a 15-year tax holiday for setting up call centers, besides other incentives for the IT/ITEs industry, a PSEB report said.

"India is a very matured market compared to Pakistan where the call centre industry is at a very nascent stage. The euphoria which India witnessed in the year 2000 can be seen there now," said Rakesh Gupta, chairman of the IT Enabled Services committee, Electronic and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC).

"At present we are sending middle and senior management people in training, operations, human resource and IT helpdesk to Pakistan," he said, noting they have tied up with two Pakistan-based companies by putting a build operate transfer (bot) team in place there.

"There is lot of scope in Pakistan. Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad are being projected as BPO destinations. And India can offer a lot to them in the way of consultancy services. We have spare capacity of such services, which can now be utilized there," he added.

Getting Visas is a major hurdle to overcome, but it has not failed to keep away BPO aspirants as the pay packages for the Indians are lucrative - the middle management is being offered a salary of Rs. 10 lakh per annum with an apartment and car thrown in as perks.

In the BPO industry, although Pakistan has not attracted services such as medical and legal transcription, data capture and forms processing, there has been a major boom in the outsourcing of voice-based call centre services to Pakistan, the PSEB report stated.

"India has become very successful in BPO since big business groups started building IT facilities instead of coal mine shafts...same is true for Pakistan. The shift from traditional business towards an IT-based economy will only happen when established businesses start entering the IT and IT-enabled services business segment," the report said.