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CHAPTER 3

RURAL BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING

�My ideal village will contain intelligent human beings. They will not live in dirt and darkness as animals. Men and women will be free and able to hold their own against anyone in the world�

- Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in �Village Swaraj�

3.1 Introduction:

This Chapter deals with the evolution of BPO industry, the uniqueness of BPO

work, the need for Rural BPO to sustain India�s competitiveness, an overview of the

Rural BPO industry, the opportunities in Rural BPO and challenges faced. Rural BPO

is nothing but delivery BPO services in a Tier-I/Tier-III/Rural location. Currently,

most of the service providers deliver these services from Tier-I locations. Hence

before getting into the specifics of Rural BPO, it is necessary to have an

understanding BPO and its uniqueness BPO work that are relevant from Rural BPO

point of view.

3.2 Evolution of Business Process Outsourcing:

Ideally business organizations are expected to focus only �core� business.

They should also work constantly to keep up their competitive advantage to remain in

business. For any organization, activities that contribute directly to competitive

advantage involve high levels of complex human interactions. Bradford et al. (2005),

in the McKinsey Quarterly article, suggests that such activities are considered to be

�tacit� in nature because the people working on such activities have to draw heavily

from tacit knowledge, and there are no pre-defined rules in this game. Activities like

analysis, innovation, planning, negotiation, coordination, customer interactions and

relationship management are examples of tacit activities. Some of the support

activities are transactional in nature and do not contribute directly to business. These

support activities tend to be routine in nature and are rule-based. Activities such as

data entry, verification, etc. are considered as transactional in nature.

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According to Denis Chamberland (2003) the accepted wisdom is that

organizations should not outsource activities that are �core� to their business that is,

those activities that are tied up in the organization�s identity-and that only �non-core�

activities should be outsourced.

Sergei Tiunov (2010) classifies all business processes into three categories:

Core activities are essential, defining activities of the organization. If the

organization gave those activities to an external party, it would be creating a

competitor or dissolving itself.

Critical but non-core activities, if not performed exceptionally well, will place

an organization at a competitive disadvantage or even create a risk. For

example, logistics is a critical but non-core activity for a producer, but it is a

core activity for a transportation company.

Non-core, non-critical activities supply no competitive advantage. Even if

performed poorly, they are less likely seriously to harm the organization in the

short term, although they are still important.

Sharpe (1997) asserts that through outsourcing of non-core activities, firms

can concentrate on core competencies and improve their productivity,

competitiveness, and sustainability in the marketplace.

Dekkers (2011) recommends that firms should consider their core

competency when deciding to outsource. He classifies firms� activities according to

the location of their performance; that is, as outsourcing to a supplier firm, as

internalization, or as near-core activities under a strategic partnership.

The concept of outsourcing gained visibility with the recession of 1990-1994,

that forced companies to outsource transaction-oriented activities to cheaper locations.

Thus, reducing cost and increasing efficiency were the driving factors which

propelled companies to outsource from 1990 onwards.

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Figure 3.1: Reasons for Outsourcing

According to the research conducted by Muhammad Mohiuddin & Zhan Su

(2013) outsourcing of non-core activities and insourcing (internalization) of core

activities have a positive impact on a firm�s integrated performance. However,

managers need to identify carefully functions that could be outsourced in order to

determine trade-offs between outsourcing and internalization.

Elmuti (2003) analyses the relationship between outsourcing strategy and

organizational performance. He demonstrates that outsourcing benefits a firm�s

performance by improving its expertise and service quality, minimizing the number of

employees it needs, optimizing its processes, and reducing costs and administrative

burden.

Rajan & Srivastava (2007), the most commonly outsourced activities are �IT

enabled Business Process Outsourcing� (BPO) Services. Activities under this

category include Call Center and other back-end business process operations such as

data entry and handling, coding, medical and legal transcriptions, etc. IT enabled BPO

relates to remote processing of BPO work through technology enablement.

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3.3 Size of BPO Industry:

The following Table shows the size of BPO industry globally:

Table 3.1: Size of Global BPO Market

It is evident that the BPO market is huge. The following pie-chart explains the

size of various BPO services in the Global market (HfS Research, (2013)).

Figure 3.2: Size of Global BPO/IT Services Market by Service Line

3.4 Outsourcing Locations:

The development of Technology has made the world �flat� and this has made

outsourcing of back office services to any location in the world. An employee sitting

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in India can work for a company in United States by accessing digitized documents

and the computer systems of the company located remotely. Outsourcing can be both

in home nation of the firm as well as abroad and entails an organizational

restructuring of some activities. Offshoring on the other hand is restructuring the

firm along another dimension namely geography. Selection of a right destination is an

important decision in offshoring. If outsourcing happens in the same country it is

called �Domestic Outsourcing�.

Services are outsourced more to countries with higher institutional quality and

greater cultural proximity. Non-routine, complex and interactive service are

outsourced relatively more to countries with a better institutional quality (Runjuan

Liu, Dorithee J Feils and Barry Schoinick, 2011).

Figure 3.3: �Location Attractiveness� of different countries

3.5 Location Attractiveness of India for BPO:

India is regarded as the premier destination for global Business Process

Outsourcing, accounting for almost 55% of the global sourcing market in 2010,

according to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. The ITeS

sector includes IT hardware, software and services. Rakesh Basant & Uma Rani

(2004) in their study on the labour market in Information Technology sector observed

a rapid rise in the employment in IT enabled services between 1999-2003. It increased

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from about 42,000 to 160,000 during this period. According to Nasscom (2012), the

Indian IT-BPO sector is estimated to have aggregated revenues of USD 88.1 billion in

2010�2011, with the IT software and services sector (excluding hardware) accounting

for USD 76.2 billion of revenues. During this period, direct employment is expected

to have reached nearly 2.5 million, an addition of 240,000 employees while indirect

job creation is estimated at 8.3 million. As a proportion of national GDP, the sector

revenues have grown from 1.2% in 1997�1998 to an estimated 6.4% in 2010�20118.

The growth of ITES BPO industry (included in the IT/ITES Services above) has been

stupendous over the last decade. This industry accounts for 34% of Worldwide BPO

market as of 2010, by becoming the large destination for BPO service delivery. This

growth has been accelerated by buyers of different sizes, across different geographies

and different service lines and different industry verticals. The BPO segment in the

industry has generated export of USD 14.1 Million in FY 2011. While India�s

attractiveness is not questioned, the sustainability of its leadership to a large extent

depends on its ability to sustain the cost competitiveness.

The following Table establishes India�s leadership position in BPO industry:

Table 3.2: India�s BPO capability compared to other countries

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67

25% of total employment. India�s main strength is English, over 4 Million English

speaking graduates pass out every year.US and UK customers contribute 82% of

India�s ITES BPO revenue generated for FY 2011.

Figure 3.5: India�s Export & Domestic BPO

This industry is expected to add 230,000 jobs in FY2012, thus providing direct

employment to about 2.8 million, and indirectly employing 8.9 million people. 58%

of the workforce in IT/BPO industry is from Tier-II/III cities, 74% of the workforce

below 30 years; 31% are Women employees BPO alone contributes USD 16B to

India�s exports and employs 876,000 people.

3.7 Unique features of BPO work:

For a better understanding of Rural BPO, it is necessary to understand the

unique features in BPO that have some relevance from Rural BPO stand-point.

Export Market for IT/ITES Domestic Market IT/ITES

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1) Night Shift & Holiday working:

United States is a major market for Indian IT and BPO sector and because of

time-zone difference and the need to provide real-time support for bulk of the work

carried out; shift working is prevalent in the industry. For example, 10:00 AM in

California is 10:30 PM in India (Pacific Daylight Saving time is 11:30 hours behind

Indian Standard time). Hence the BPO employees in India, who work on Business

Process work from a company located in California, may need to work during the

night only.

The most widespread shift system is when production is organized in eight-

hour shifts, called morning, evening and night shifts (Knutsson & Scand, 1989). In

the BPO industry, typically BPO staff in India support US customers work in Night

shift. People who are supporting European region work post-noon shift. Unlike IT

jobs, which have some onsite component in service delivery to support customers in

US, BPO jobs are significantly offshore based. Shift working in IT is relatively less

compared to BPO. Shift working is very much become part of the BPO operation.

Off late, because of the cost pressures, service providers resort to shift working to

maximize capacity utilization (also known as �seat utilization�) and hence shift

working is also considered as a lever for cost reduction. There is an expectation that a

BPO job aspirant should be prepared to work in night shift considering the nature of

the work performed by Indian BPO industry.

Similarly, an employee in India who is supporting a customer in another

country say United States may even need to work on a festival holiday in India. But

he may enjoy a holiday in India, when customer country has a holiday � say, for

example, US Independence Day.

2) Transactional nature of the work

Business Process Outsourcing in India is organized in many segments. Back-

office processing and customer interaction services are among the fastest and largest

growing segments that contribute significantly to the Indian BPO market. The main

activities or areas covered by the BPOs include customer care, finance and

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administration, medical transcription, insurance claims, inventory management and

HR and payment services including payroll, credit-card services, check processing,

and employee leasing. Data processing work and rule-based work which are

voluminous and labour intensive are largely outsourced to India. Adherence to the

Standard Operating Procedure is a must. Hence the processes are documented, and

people are trained before the start working for the customer.

Figure 3.6: Different Levels of Complexities in BPO134

The skill set required for Data Entry, and Conversion is very basic in nature.

Even undergraduates with English proficiency and job-related training may be able to

perform.

3) Service Levels

When a customer enters a BPO contract with a BPO service provider the

service levels are defined and agreed. These are measured during the tenure of the

service on a periodical basis and shared with the customer. If the agreed service

levels are not met, depending upon the terms of the contract there could be financial

liabilities for the service provider. If the service provider is not able to meet the

service levels for a longer period, depending upon the terms of the contract, the

customer may also terminate the contract. The parameters typically cover the

timeliness, accuracy level and efficiency. Following are the examples:

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Typical Service Level for a Call Center Work in BPO

Figure 3.7: Service Levels in a Call Center BPO � An Example

Quality is given utmost importance in BPO industry. The performance of the

work is checked for quality almost daily, and the large BPO organizations use

workflow systems to track the Service Level metrics. The service provider

organization traces the details of productivity, accuracy and other parameters at the

employee level using the workflow systems. Training, Promotion, Rewards, etc. are

linked to the day-today performance at the individual level.

4. Data Security & Control:

BPO Service providers need to give high importance to the security of data if

they are dealing a lot of confidential data. For example, credit card information,

personal details of customer�s employees or customers, health information, etc.

Compliance under ISO Standard 27000, which deals with Information Security

Requirement, HIPPA, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc., may also be insisted by the customer

outsourcing the work. Besides that they the customer may also insist for control

requirements with respect to technology namely, Firewall, Access Controls,

Encryptions, Password controls, Data Server security, backup process, installation of

surveillance camera, restriction on internet access, email usage, etc. There may also

be a need for physical control such as restricted access to customer delivery area,

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swiping of the access card, physical check at entry and exit, restriction on usage of

storage medium, restriction on printing, etc. The employees may also be asked to sign

Non-disclosure agreement depending on the nature of work carried out. For critical

operations, Disaster Recovery Plan and Business Continuity plan are also be required.

5. Governance & Virtual Meetings:

According to Bradford C. Johnson, James M. Manyika, and Lareina A.

Yee (McKinsey Quarterly, 2005), Outsourcing, like the boom in global operations

and marketing, has dramatically increased the need to interact with vendors and

partners. And communications technologies such as e-mail and instant messaging

have made interaction easier and far less expensive. Since the customers are located in

a different geography, the service provider management teams at the customer-end

have regular phone calls. Reporting mechanism on the day today performance of

business process exists. All the communications happen by email or phone call.

Transparency and reporting of exceptions and problems and good governance

mechanism is the critical for delivering service to the customer in a remote location.

6. Cultural sensitivities:

The employees in BPO mostly handle customers in a different geography, and

they need to understand and be sensitive to the culture, expectations, geography,

business practices, etc. relating to the location concerned. For the customer, India

BPO delivery center is just their extended arm. For example, expectation on

punctuality & meeting committed timelines is different in western countries. While

the BPO Service Provider trains the employees on these areas, on the day to day

dealings, these employees expected to adapt themselves.

3.8 Future of Indian BPO Industry:

Nasscom-McKinsey study (2008) review the performance of ITES industry

for the previous year ten year period and observed that he ITES BPO industry

enhanced India�s credibility as a destination by creating a fundamentally new model

24/7 Service delivery, forging relationships with 75% of the Fortune 500 companies,

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generating immense saving for customers (saving from global sourcing for customers

amounted to an estimated USD 20-25 Billion in 2008 alone), and promoting a focus

on quality (65% of all Capability Maturity Model or CMM level 5 firms are based in

India. The industry has also set a precedent for talent practices in India. The study

concludes that India needs to sustain this advantage by removing the constraints of

talents and physical infrastructure. Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney (2006)

observe that the remarkable aspect of service offshoring that we have noted is the

rapidity with which it can occur. The study shows that India experienced vertiginous

growth as they expanded from start-up to 5,000 employees in less than three years

The outsourcing companies� focus on cost reduction has not changed. The

following chart prepared based on the findings from a recent study conducted in 2011

shows cost reduction still continues to be the primary driver for outsourcing of

Business Processes:

Figure 3.8: Reasons for Outsourcing (2011)

But sustaining the cost saving potential on account of outsourcing is a major

challenge faced by the industry. While India has emerged as a leader, the question is

whether it can sustain the market share is a big question considering the global market

conditions, political developments, increasing costs, challenges in scalability like

attrition, infrastructure support, global competition, etc. According to Ashok Guha

and Amrit Ray (2004), �the advantages of India, name English speaking capability

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and low cost of labour are far from permanent in character. With some effort, they

can be replicated in other countries, and they can be irreparably damaged if not

destroyed by unimaginative policy.� Though these comments to relate to Information

Technology Outsourcing, it may well are applicable to Business Process Outsourcing

as well. The following recent developments are worth noting in this regard:

1) According to a recent study conducted by ASSOCHAM (2011) �India�s

prominence as an IT/ITES hub has been declining owing to diminishing employable

talent pool, High cost of doing business due to inefficiencies of power, transport,

security, concentration in metros due to inadequate infrastructure in other towns, etc.�

More than 90% of revenue is generated from Tier-I cities only. There exists a real

threat to the industry, if India is not cost competitive and BPO jobs may be shifted to

locations like Philippines, Vietnam, China, Poland, Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, and

Egypt. Philippines offer a suitable alternative to India IT/ITES BPO industry. In fact,

ASSOCHAM Pulse Survey Report (2012) on IT/ITES industry that observed

movement of some ITES BPO jobs in Bangalore and Hyderabad to Philippines.

2. China, which was not considered as the best BPO location for want of English

fluency, is focusing on becoming a viable alternative to India. With the support of the

Chinese Government, the challenges of China BPO market are getting addressed, and

it can become the �low-cost large pool resource hub� for BPO (M&Y Global

Services, United Kingdom, 2010).

3. As the industry is maturing, the expectations from customers go up.

Customers choosing to outsource services can, not only be justified by the drive to

reduce costs, but it aims to meet more advanced objectives as accurate alignment with

business strategies of the enterprise. As a result, outsourcing has reached new forms

of expression that can help the enterprises to gain competitive advantage (I. Andone,

Vasile and Daniel W.Pavaloaia, 2010). The expectations from the customers of BPO

are going up, and they look for �transformational� benefits not just �labour cost

arbitrage.� Indian BPOs have to focus on �Value Creation� for the customers.

According to Heckett�s 2008 Globalization Performance Study, �BPOs fall short of

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their goal of driving innovation. Only 17% of users were satisfied with their BPO�s

ability to innovate.�

4. According to Logica�s top 10 predictions in ITO-BPO 2008-12, �Nearshoring

will become much more prevalent. Within the USA, rural sourcing will become a

niche market� (in �The Outsourcing Enterprise - Building Core Retained Capabilities�

by Leslie P. Willcocks and Andrew S Craig (2007)). It would mean that the US jobs

will remain in US and to reduce the cost, low cost location within US will be explored

instead of transferring jobs to locations like India.

5. ITES-BPO concept is yet to become popular in the domestic market in India.

Currently, ITES BPO is widely present in Voice based support (Customer Services)

only (Source: NASSCOM Strategic Review, 2011). �The importance of the domestic

market cannot be overemphasized. Anthony P D�Costa (2002) observed that the

issue is not to promote the domestic market at the cost of the export market. Rather it

is to allow the former to play a more significant complimentary role to the latter. It

holds good now for BPO as well.

�Building Sustainability� is therefore, the need of the hour for Indian ITES-

BPO industry and it has to address various challenges. These challenges relate to both

Demand as well as Supply side. Secondly, India is still focussing on the low end of

the value chain of business processes, and there is always a risk of these jobs, when

another destination becomes attractive. Moving up in the value chain would

strengthen sustainability.

On the Supply side, India has to address multiple challenges and gaps. These

can be broadly classified into: (1) Cost Competitiveness (2) Resource

Competitiveness and (3) Service Competitiveness. Due to inflation, attrition,

concentration only on Tier-I cities, etc. managing cost has been a major challenge for

the past few years. �Employability� has been another key challenge facing India as

the % of employable resources out of the �educationally qualified� resources has been

poor as evidenced by the industry experience and various studies conducted.

Containing attrition and managing talent are other challenges relating to

competitiveness of resources. Thirdly, as the customer expectations are changing due

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to continuous margin pressures, ITES BPO companies are expected to deliver

�benefits beyond labour cost arbitrage� in order to remain competitive in the market.

The Indian ITES BPO companies are looking at transformational initiatives,

continuous improvement to achieve �Value creation� for the customers.

One of the solutions to these challenges is to expand of BPO beyond Tier-I

cities (hereinafter referred to as �Rural BPO�) so that Urban BPOs can focus on

�value-added� activities and cost competitiveness of Indian BPO is maintained. The

need, opportunities, current status and challenges of the Rural BPO are discussed in

the following paragraphs.

3.9 Evolution of Rural BPO:

The rapid expansion of BPO companies in select metropolitan cities (Tier-I)

caused intense competition for available talent, and this led to frequent poaching of

staff. It has led to increase in salary costs and pressure on sustaining the cost saving

potential on out of outsourcing. Management of IT-BPO companies find that

outsourcing their work to a rural area or Tier-II/Tier-III city in India (hereinafter

referred to as �Rural BPO�) not only yields better profits without sacrificing quality,

but also reduces their headache in human resource management. An urban-based

Indian company may pay an employee INR 30,000-40,000 per month. But without

sacrificing on quality or time, the same work could be done in rural areas and Tier

Two cities at INR 15,000 (Sree Rama Rao (2008). Moreover this is now enabled by

extensive network connectivity. Rural BPO is one of the few avenues of employment

for rural India. It is an attempt to combine entrepreneurship and social empowerment

bridging the ever increasing rural-urban divide (Sabyasachi Kashyap, 2009).

In the last few years there has been a focus for developing Tier-II, Tier-III and

Rural locations for IT enabled services as there are challenges in sustaining cost

competitiveness of delivering BPO services from the select cities, which are called

Tier-I cities in the industry.

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3.10 Stakeholders in Rural BPO:

Rural BPO is nothing but delivery of BPO services in a Tier-I/Tier-III/Rural

location, which is predominantly delivered in Tier-I location. As the nature of work in

BPO has some unique requirements, like Data Security, Uninterrupted Service to

meet Service Levels, etc. it is necessary to ensure the same are fulfilled whether it is

delivered from Tier-I city or a Village.

Customer, BPO Service Provider, Employees, Government, Local Community

and Industry bodies such as NASSCOM are the key stakeholders in setting up and

running the Rural BPO.

The following diagram explains the role of various stakeholders in Rural BPO:

Figure 3.9: Stakeholders in Rural BPO

3.11 What kinds of services are offered by Rural BPO?

Rural BPOs have come up as an alternative for low-end, low-skilled data entry

work that proves to be costly when worked out of a Tier-I BPO. Services that are

more routine less complex or less interactive and services that are delivered in local

language would be the potential candidates for promoting BPO in Tier-II/Tier-

III/Rural locations.

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From the details available in the public domain, it is found that following are

the broad categories of services delivered by Rural BPOs in India; include both voice-

based services, as well as data related services. From the secondary data available, it

is found that the services delivered from Rural BPOs include Digitization of

documents (land records, tax forms, certificates etc.), Customer Service, Data

Capture, Billing, Document Verification, Account Reconciliation, Accounts Payable,

Web Research & Monitoring, Translation and Transcription.

Rural BPOs in India are predominantly cover industry verticals such as

Banking (Example, �Know Your Customer� related processing), Insurance (Example,

Premium Processing/Policy administration), Telecom (Billing and Customer Service)

and Government (Digitization of records).

3.12 Need for/Objectives of Rural BPOs:

The industry experts suggest there are several reasons why rural BPOs are

growing and gaining prominence (KPMG (2011), Wharton (2010), Beth Ellyn

(2010), Jacob Cherian (2010), Malhotra S. Rathi et al. (2007) and Tushar Kanti

(2011)). The major reasons are:

1. Cost: According to NASSCOM-Everest Study report (2008), movement to low-

cost Tier-II/III cities is attractive despite lower employability and higher management

overheads. As per their analysis shows that providers can reduce total operating costs

by 20-30 per cent by moving to a low-cost city within India. The operational costs

like real estate rentals, transportation, and facilities management are also substantially

lower compared to Tier-I cities. If Tier-I city is the only option, with the increasing

costs in India, the global customers may start looking for alternate cheaper locations

outside of India (example: Philippines, China). The cost differential between urban

and rural areas helps in sustaining India as an attractive location for BPO.

2. Growth of domestic outsourcing market: The Indian domestic companies

explore outsourcing market in order to reduce their costs. Between a Tier-I city and

Tier-II/III city, there is a significant cost differential (refer to the Table 3.3 on

Comparison cost between Mumbai & Madurai). The advantage in leveraging rural

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India for the domestic market is that the skill set (mainly communication skills)

requirement for handling BPO processes for a domestic company is relatively lower

compared to global corporations.

3. Local Language: Rural BPOs bring in access to vernacular language capabilities

essential for penetrating regional and rural markets. Considering the geographic

spread, cultural diversity and numerous dialects within India, Rural India is better

positioned to handle business processes relating to regional markets within India.

4. Government Incentives: Both the national and state governments are supporting

and providing incentives for setting up Rural BPO. Some State Governments have

come out with Rural BPO Policy to promote BPO in rural areas.

5. Participation from non-government organizations (NGOs): Promoting Rural

BPO is more viewed as a corporate social responsibility as the same provides great

opportunity to uplift the rural population. Various non-profit organizations and NGOs

work with BPO companies and the local community to establish BPO in various rural

areas.

6. Alignment of interest with the Indian business: Banks and Telecom companies

want to penetrate the interiors of India to sell their products. Rural BPOs can provide

a viable service support infrastructure for these companies.

3.13 Opportunities on account of Rural BPO:

IT and ITES are mainly concentrated in seven cities namely, 1) Delhi &

National Capital Region (NCR) 2) Kolkata 3) Chennai 4) Bangalore 5) Hyderabad 6)

Mumbai & Pune (Source: TERI-NASSCOM Green ICT Report December, 2011).

Growth of BPO in Tier-I locations lead to not only increase in the cost of cost of

delivering services but also adds to urban migration.

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Figure 3.10: Opportunities in Rural BPO

NASSCOM-CRISIL report (2007) calculates that every Rupee spent by IT-

ITES Sector (on domestically sourced goods and services) translates into total output

of Rupees two in the economy. And for every job created in the sector, four jobs are

created in the rest of the economy. Thus promoting Tier-II/Tier-III/Rural locations

provide a great opportunity for not only the service providers but also the economy.

According to NASSCOM (2010), about 50 rural BPOs employ 5,000 people.

The 2015 projections put out by 11 rural BPOs are staggering � about 1,000 centres

and 150,000 employees (Source: Dun & Bradstreet, Report on BPO). If, rural BPOs

flourish in this manner, they will create about 10-12 lakhs jobs directly and indirectly

(Source: bpmwatch.com). It is also widely seen that, leading BPO companies in India

such as Infosys, Wipro, TCS and many others are hunting their talents from small

cities in India to achieve cost efficiency in performing transactional jobs like data

entry and form filling. According to Ernst &Young (2011), already there are more

than 50 successful Rural Centers in India providing BPO Services to both domestic

and global clients. Recently ASSOCHAM (2011) conducted a study on employment

generation during the Financial Year 2011 covering 56 cities across India. Tier-II and

Tier-III cities have cornered 38.8 per cent (total 17 cities Tier-II cities) and 23 Per

cent (total 33 Tier-III cities) share of the job space respectively in the financial year

2010-11. IT and BPO sector, which commands 30 per cent share in total employment

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generation during the Financial Year 2011, registered 27.6 Per cent of growth over the

previous year.

Rural areas are still home for to significant population in India. As per Census

(2011), 72.2% of the total population lives in rural India. 58.7% of the rural

population is literate while 79.9% of urban population is literate. As per previous

census 20.5 Million people have migrated from Rural to Urban areas for employment

from 1991 to 2001. Generation of employment of potential in rural areas will not only

reduce the migration of population from rural to urban but also ensure faster

transformation of Rural India.

While the cost difference between US and Tier-I city in India is considerable,

significant cost difference exists even within India between a Tier-I and Tier-II/III

locations. The following table provides comparison of cost of living in three

representative locations:

Cost Component Mumbai V

Miami(Mumbai

Miami V.Madurai (Madurai lower by)

Mumbai V.Madurai (Madurai lower by)

Consumer Prices 61.57% 67.48% 15.37% Rent Prices 69.18% 91.62% 72.20% Restaurant Prices 69.36% 84.50% 49.40% Purchasing Power 50.95% 66.90% 32.52%

(Analysis based on Data available as of 6th April, 2013 in: //www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living)

Table 3.3 Comparison of Costs of Living: Miami-US, Mumbai, India vs. Madurai, India

Regardless of the global recession the telecommunication industry in India

saw unforeseen growth. Indian operators added another 15.41 million customers in

January 2009 and 13.45 million users in February 2009 taking the mobile users to

391.8 million (Reuters, 2009). Breakthrough in telecommunication in India reduced

the world to a global village.

In a typical BPO, the services in high cost country are moved to a low cost

country and therefore the opportunity to promote BPO is limited to those low

countries which has the skilled labour, scale and infrastructure. Since there is always

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cost differential between an urban and a rural location even in advanced countries, the

concept of Rural BPO is relevant for every country. Moreover, because Rural BPO

protects jobs getting moved out of the country, Rural BPO is gaining importance in

high cost countries like US. Saloni Malhotra (2009) finds that rural BPO model

provides cost cutting alternatives to urban clients and new sources of income and

employment to the villagers, by leveraging Internet technology through a case study

on a Rural BPO Company in India. While in a study by Dharmendra Mehta, et al.

(2011) conducted on 200 youth aspirants in Madhya Pradesh, it is very revealing that

so far the youth of rural areas have not identifying BPO as a lucrative career option.

3.14 Rural Development leveraging Rural BPOs:

Rural BPOs benefits the village community in many ways. This includes:

1. People: Improvement in literacy, improvement in skill set & employment

2. Society: Rural empowerment, self-sufficiency, Improved Living environment,

Women employment.

3. Employee: Support family needs, higher education for the youth, stay closer

to family

4. Rural Economy: Stimulation of economic activity. Prevention of migration

3.15 Human Resource Development on account of Rural BPOs:

As Rural BPOs can run the operations with Graduates and undergraduates, the

potential employees can be trained in English proficiency, job skills and deployed in

the Rural BPO centers. BPO companies employ young people for their operations;

rural youth are motivated to get trained and employed without the need to migrate to

urban areas. Some large companies have started providing training to potential

employees before even they pass out graduation. Another feature in Rural BPO is that

it can provide employment to graduate and undergraduate women and make them

skilled and self-dependent.

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3.16 Potential Benefits to the Government Departments/Citizens:

Rural BPOs also provide an opportunity to Government to outsourcing the

process work to the Rural BPO centers that can help achieving cost savings besides

guaranteeing levels of quality and accuracy commitments. It will help in creating

Entrepreneurs in the rural areas besides trained resources all over the State/Country.

Karnataka�s Atalji Janasnehi Kendras for Karnataka�s e-governance (earlier known as

�Nemmadi�) is a good example (Source: The Hindu, 26th December 2012).

3.17 Growth of Rural BPO in India:

Moving BPOs to Tier-II cities is relatively easier than moving to a rural

location considering the availability of infrastructure and better living environment.

Convincing overseas customers even for a Tier-II city is not an easy task. They look

at connectivity and access to the location, availability of the resource pool, quality of

resources and infrastructure development, etc. Customers expect that they are able to

visit the facility as and when required without much of an inconvenience. The

development of Tier-II/Tier-III cities for BPO, as well as the growth of BPO in Rural

locations, is explained in the subsequent paragraphs.

3.18 BPO in Tier-II/Tier-III cities in India

Based on the secondary research the following are the observations with

regard to the current status of Tier-II/Tier-III emerging in India:

TERI-Nasscom report classifies emerging locations as under:

Categories Cities Strengths

Challenger Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Madurai, Mangalore, Nagpur, Trichy, Thiruvananthapuram, Vadodara and Visakhapatnam

These cities are building an IT ecosystem to scale up the employment in the sector by promoting IT SEZs and attracting major companies

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Follower Aurangabad, Bhopal, Goa, Gwalior, Hubli-Dharwar, Kanpur, Mysore, Nasik, Pondicherry, Salem, Surat and Vijayawada

These cities are working towards improving the infrastructure to levels of Challenger or Leader locations, with greater focus on academic and technical institutions.

Aspirant Allahabad, Dehradun, Durgapur, Gangtok, Guwahati, Ludhiana, Patna, Raipur, Ranchi, Shimla, Siliguri, Srinagar and Varanasi

These cities are slowly enhancing their awareness about IT specific knowledge base, and are working towards improving infrastructure and promoting educational institutions

Table 3.4 Emerging locations for BPO in India

In order to get a better understanding of the readiness and current status of

different cities, consulting firms do an assessment of the location under various

parameters. For example, the following Tables provide the �location attractiveness�

of Tier-II/III cities in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu from BPO perspective (Nasscom-

AT Kearney (2008)):

Locations in Karnataka:

Parameter Bangalore Mangalore Hubli-Dharwar Mysore

Leader Challenger Follower Follower Government Support 4.6 Business Environment 7.9 5.9 4.6 5.9 Skill Set Assessment- 7.2 4.0 4.5 4.0 Infrastructure 7.6 5.0 4.1 4.0 Social & Living Environment

5.4 6.2 5.6 5.4

Location Attractiveness � BPO

6.8 4.7 4.4 4.4

Cost Advantage 14% 37% 38% 32%

Table 3.5 Assessment of Locations in Karnataka with respect to ITES BPO

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Locations in Tamil Nadu (with respect to ITES BPO)

Parameter Chennai Coimbatore Madurai Salem Trichy Leader Challenger Challenger Follower Challenger

Government Support 7.7 Business Environment 7.7 6.3 4.3 4.5 3.5 Skill Set Assessment- 7.6 4.9 4.2 3.5 4.5 Infrastructure 8.1 5.6 4.9 3.6 5.5 Social & Living Environment

5.8 4.7 5.5 5.3 5.8

Location Attractiveness � BPO 7.6 5.6 5.0 4.5 5.3 Cost Advantage 13% 34% 21% 36% 35%

Table 3.6 Assessment of Locations in Tamil Nadu with respect to ITES BPO

3.19 BPO in Villages:

The secondary research done reveals that there are multiple types of Rural

BPOs in India � BPOs in �Tier-II/Tier-III�� cities and BPOs that run in Villages

(�Village BPO�). Rural BPOs service local business, Government, regional, domestic

and international customers or a combination of domestic and international customers.

Some of the large business organizations start Rural BPO as part of CSR initiative

while a few of them move their process to rural areas for reducing cost. Some of the

large service organizations partner with Rural BPOs and subcontract the work to rural

areas for cost reduction.

Based on the Business Model, broadly four types of Rural BPOs are prevalent

in India: (1) Domestic Captive; (2) Service Provider operate in Villages using (Hub

and Spoke Model); (3) Large Service Provider operate with Smaller Service operate

in Rural areas (4) e-Governance Service centres through Rural BPOs.

DesiCrew, Uday Foundation, Comat, Source Pilani, B2R, Dristee, Harva,

HDFC Rural BPO Center at Tirupati, FOSTeRA, Source For Change, Rural Shores,

Atalji Janasnehi Kendras for Karnataka�s e-governance (earlier known as

�Nemmadi�) are some of the Rural BPOs operating in India.

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Rural BPO - Growth Projections (By 2013 - 2015)

Current Projection

Companies Customers Centres Employees Centres EmployeesADF 1 2 550 NA NAB2R 3 2 100 100 6,000DesiCrew 12 5 225 50 5,000Drishtee 6 -7 2 30 NA NAeGramIT 15 4 700 30 3,000Harva 5 3 30 70-100 10,000NextWealth NA 2 200 40 1,000RuralShores 12 6 500 500 100,000Source For Change 4 1 70 200 10,000SourcePilani 7 1 60 5 500Tata Group 4 NA 2000 ----- 10,000Total 26 4,465 925 145,500

Table 3.7 Rural BPO - Growth Projections (By 2013 - 2015)

(Source:www.bpmwatch.com, posted in Aug 12,2010)

It is also observed that leading Indian Business Process Service providers

(such as Genpact, Infosys, Wipro, Aegis) have created centers in rural areas or formed

partnerships with rural BPOs. Genpact, the $1.1 billion global BPO major, has given

out its internal finance and accounts work to RuralShores, one of the largest rural

BPOs. Mainstream BPOs like Infosys BPO, Wipro BPO and Aditya Birla Minacs are

looking further to outsource some of the basic work they get like digitising forms,

data entry, cataloguing books or ensuring the accuracy of website content. Bharti

Airtel and Aegis are running pilots. According to NASSCOM, (as of 2010) there are

about 50 rural BPOs, employing about 5,000. By 2015, this is expected to go up to

150,000!

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3.20 Business Model of BPO in Rural location:

Figure 3.11: Typical Rural BPO Business Model

(Source: Dristee Research Report)

The typical rural delivery model is a network of small centres strategically

selected across rural and semi-urban locations. Each centre is run with a 25-50 seat

facility. Some rural BPOs do shifts-working to service global clients. Locations of

the centres are identified based on the population. Training is given to the people so

that they can be employed in operations. The benefits of this model include:

1. Creation of computer based knowledge related jobs in communities where there are no similar jobs.

2. Lower attrition rates for the industry, as people are less inclined to leave their jobs given the improved quality of life and option of staying with their families.

3. Lower costs for clients as overheads at these centres are far cheaper as compared to the urban counterparts.

3.21 Infrastructure requirements of Rural BPO

Technology and Telecommunications have played a vital role for Rural BPOs

in taking jobs and operating from rural locations. Telecom services providers such as

BSNL, Reliance, etc. have been able to extend reliable connectivity via internet

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services, leased line circuits in rural areas. Other technology components include the

backend network gear that includes the routers, switches, etc. for LAN connectivity to

the WAN. The WAN or Wide Area Network consists of state of high speed leased

lines, internet leased lines which has built in benefits such as cost savings, Quality of

Service, improved performance and ease of augmentation. Redundant WAN links are

also deployed to ensure high availability and continuity of service should there be any

failure in the primary link (Source: Ruralshores.com).

3.22 Training in Rural BPO:

Employable graduates are very low in rural locations. Training plays a crucial

role in converting the rural graduates and undergraduates as employee in rural BPO.

Typically three levels training are provided to all the employees:

� General Training: This is primarily the induction training for 6-8 weeks. This

training is also handled by specialist firms to make it effective and decrease

the training duration.

� Process Training: Process training is specific to customer�s business processes

that are outsourced and typically this training happens over 2-4 weeks.

� On the Job Training: Depending on training needs, changes in the process,

changes in the team, etc. training is provided to employees. Adherence to

Standard Operating Procedure laid out is important for every employee. In

addition, as a customer stipulates the service levels, the productivity, accuracy

and timeliness are regularly monitored. Training if any, needed to improve the

productivity and accuracy levels is also provided on an on-going basis.

3.23 Profile of a Rural BPO Company:

For better understanding of a Rural BPO, profile of a leading Rural BPO

Service provider in India is given below:

�RuralShores� is one of the Rural BPO Companies having its BPO units in

different villages across India. The following Table provides the rural locations, size,

and % of women employed and the how each Rural BPO unit is managed.

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Source: �RuralShores� by Mukherji, IIM-Bangalore (2012)

Table 3.8 Rural BPO Units of �RuralShores�

3.24 Challenges in running BPOs in Tier-II, Tier-III & Rural Locations:

The unique nature of BPO work like Data Security, Service Level

commitments which require uninterrupted service, etc. poses some challenges when it

is delivered in a location other than the Tier-I cities. As stated earlier, the key

challenge is to convince the global clients that work can be done and delivered more

efficiently by a BPO unit located in a rural location. Based on secondary research on

Rural BPO organizations such as Comat, Desicrew, SourcePilani, Dristee,

SourceforChange, Rural Sources, Uday Foundation, Harva, HDFC Bank Processing

Center, it is found that while there is a good case for promoting rural BPOs, there are

quite a few challenges in running a Rural BPOs. Some of the key challenges are

discussed below:

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1. Availability of Power & Infrastructure

According to Junjunwala (2009), the lead for the Telecommunications and

Computer Networks Group (TeNeT) at IIT Madras, BPOs can use low-power system

and even the existing power infrastructure can be used, provided there is a very

good power backup system in place. Rural BPOs can also use decentralised energy

generation, alternative energy generation, etc. Long and extended power cuts from a

few hours on the lower side to a few days on the extreme side are taken for granted in

Indian villages. It often limits the variety of services that the BPO could offer.

2. Support for business:

It is difficult to persuade the software vendors and the maintenance engineers

to provide on-going service and support in remote places like Nellore and Tirupati.

3. Skilled Resources � Availability, Sustainability & Scalability:

Skilled Resource availability, Retention and Training has been a major

challenge in Rural BPO, and they have to take support from near-by cities. The size of

the available skilled labour pool for rural BPOs is limited. Both sustainability and

scalability remains a challenge.

4. Access to funding: Most of the Rural BPOs who have seen some success so

far now are being supported by large Indian corporations or have managed to receive

funding through venture capitalists based on the social impact that the business could

cause. A strong business case with scalability and growth prospects remains unclear

and uncertain.

It may be noted that even in some Tier-II cities, the IT/BPO industries have

challenges. For example, Coimbatore, a Tier-II City and the second IT/BPO

destination in Tamil Nadu for more than five years. Still, in a meeting organized by

NASSCOM in April 2011, the IT/BPO companies in Coimbatore expressed that they

face challenges. It includes the need for better roads, air and rail connectivity, talent

recruitment, vendor capability for supporting services, cost competitiveness and

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branding (Source: THE HINDU, April 26, 2011). Availability of robust infrastructure

is critical for BPO whether it is in Tier-II city or village.

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (2012), the former President of India, in his book

�Vision 2020�, argues the following connectivity for the cluster of villages:

i. Physical Connectivity (roads, transport facilities, etc.)

ii. Economic Connectivity (Banks, Commercial organizations, etc.)

iii. Knowledge Connectivity (School, colleges, vocational education, etc.)

iv. Societal Connectivity (Hospital, recreational facilities, place of worship, etc.) and

v. Electronic Connectivity (Phone, internet, cable, etc.)

Another important factor for the sustainability of Rural BPOs is generation of

efficiency, which is possible only through consolidation of services, size, scale and

specialization. It should be kept in mind even from the early stages of setting up the

Rural BPOs.

3.25 Role of NASSCOM in promoting Rural BPOs in India:

NASSCOM, the chamber of commerce and the 'voice' of the Indian IT

software and services industry launched the pilot of its NASSCOM Assessment of

Competence (NAC) programme in August 2007. The programme is aimed at the

potential employees of the booming BPO industry and is an industry standard

assessment and certification programme that aims to ensure the transformation of a

'trainable' workforce into an 'employable workforce.' The programme tests the

aptitude of a candidate on different skill sets and includes listening and keyboard

skills, verbal ability, spoken English, comprehension and writing ability, office

software usage, numerical and analytical skills and concentration and accuracy. The

NASSCOM Foundations working to study and grow the eco-system and ensuring that

growth or Rural BPO, which is termed as �Rural BPO 2.0 � Impact Sourcing,� is

profit-driven. �Impact Sourcing,� is aimed at reducing costs by around 40 per cent

compared to typical urban BPOs and bringing down attrition from 40-60 per cent to 8-

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12 per cent). The STAR Scheme plans to train more youth starting from 10th grade

level on relevant industry skills.

3.26 Incentives from the Government to promote Rural BPO

Some of the State Governments have already announced Rural BPO Policy to

promote and support Rural BPOs. For example, Tamil Nadu has come out with Rural

BPO Policy in August 2012. It provides for subsidies for Capital, Transport,

Training, etc. to promote Rural BPOs in Tamil Nadu.

Fiscal incentives � Kerala State as an example:

Some of the State Governments like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, etc. have come out

with IT Policy to promote BPO/IT in Tier-II/Tier-III/Rural locations. Kerala�s

initiative in this regard is given as an example.

Nearly 11% of the national IT pool is skilled human resources from Kerala.

But Kerala does not have a Tier-I City in IT or IT Services. Now it has come out with

an IT Policy (2012) and started promoting growth of IT/IT Services in its Tier-II

Cities namely Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode and Kochi besides supporting Hub &

Spoke model in Rural BPO. It includes Standard Investment Subsidy (SIS) -

30%/40% of Fixed Capital Investment subject to a limit of INR. 15 lakhs or INR. 25

Lakhs, depending upon the location, concessional power tariffs, relaxation in respect

of Floor Space Index, Stamp Duty exemption, preferential treatment for procurement

by Government, etc. Kerala has over 300 leading companies with global operations

and directly employs over 40,000 IT professionals. Kerala has attracted some of the

leading companies in the world. Some of these are Infosys, Wipro, Tata Consultancy

Services, ACS-XEROX, Allianz Cornhill, Ernst & Young, McKinsey, OPI Global,

Cognizant, Sutherland, SIT Mobile, Arbitron, Tata Teleservices, Alcatel-Lucent,

NHR Outsourcing, etc. The Department of IT, Government of Kerala, has set up

India�s first exclusive ITES training center in Kochi. Various training programmes are

conducted for students like Spoken English, Business English Certification (BEC),

and Call Centre aimed to improve the Communication skills required for IT/ ITES

industry. (Source: Kerala IT Policy, 2012 � www.keraliait.org)

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3.27 Domestic BPO � an ideal candidate for Rural BPO:

The domestic BPO market (Business Process work of Indian companies) has

significant untapped potential (AT Kearney, (2013)). BPO from Indian Companies

offers great potential in the Domestic Services Market as there is a significant cost

differential between Tier-I cities and other locations. It is an ideal candidate in the

current situation, as the skill set requirements is much lower for an Indian company

compared to that of US or UK.

More than 72% of our population is living in rural India. Now there is a great

opportunity on hand to tap into the talent pool that thrives in rural areas and ensure

balanced growth across the country. It will also ensure that India is in a position to

dominate as the �Back Office of the World� for a very long period!

3.28 Rural BPO in other countries:

Rural BPO is relevant not only for India, but also for any country which is

preferred for BPO, like China and, Malaysia. In the current political scenario, Rural

BPO is also propagated in the countries like United States where the cost is high, to

prevent jobs from moving outside the country. A brief overview about Rural BPO

prevalent in some of these countries is given below:

China:

China is a �low cost� country and outsourcing destination primarily for

business process outsourcing in Asian languages like Japanese and Korea besides

Chinese languages. In 2006, China government announced �1000-100-10 Project� to

develop a base of 10 internationally competitive destinations in China to take up

service outsourcing to service 100 well-known global customers and cultivate 1000

service organizations. Now three cities in China namely, Dalian, Shanghai and

Beijing have made it to the Top 10 Most Attractive location for outsourcing (Source:

IDC Forecast report, Apr/May 2008).

China�s rising importance in global outsourcing is unmistakable. With a focus

and key investments from the Government in the areas of technology, education and

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infrastructure, China has emerged as a favorable nation for IT/Business Process

Services (A New Dawn: China�s Emerging Role in Global Outsourcing-KPMG

Study (2009).

Japan:

Japan is a �high cost� country. Because of Japanese is intensive used in

business within Japan, cost saving potential by offshoring BPO is limited. But,

Okinawa, a remote location within Japan is considered to be a �low cost destination�

in Japan. Okinawa Prefecture promotes IT/BPO in certain designated towns and

villages by providing tax incentives, communication & technology infrastructure and

training. The cost of living in Okinawa is lower by ~30% compared to the nationwide

average.

United States of America:

United States is a �high cost� country, and India has been the preferred

destination for BPO work. Because of offshoring or foreign outsourcing, the many of

the employees in the outsourcing companies lose their jobs. Foreign outsourcing has

been a controversial subject politically in US, particularly with unemployment

running high in the recent times. By basing workers in smaller cities companies like

Rural Sourcing Inc. (RSI), provide skilled employees at an overall cost comparable to

offshore locations. The gap between the costs in India vs. cost in US narrows down

when the added costs of long-distance travel, greater management oversight,

inevitable communications and cultural breakdowns and potential geopolitical

upheaval are factored (David Markiewicz, 2011).

Sri Lanka:

Chanuka Wattegama (2009) analyses the BPOs present in Sri Lanka.

OnTime Technologies was the first BPO Company in Sri Lanka. Started in May

2007, it has a state of art BPO facility in Mahavilachchiya � in the heart of rural Sri

Lanka. In Koslanda, the residents to translate and transcribe audio files from Tamil or

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Sinhala into English, or vice versa. Web Design is another service offered in this

Rural BPO.

3.29 Conclusion:

India is preferred by global corporation for outsourcing back office work,

primarily due to cost advantage and availability of English proficient people. It is in

an ideal time-zone for outsourcing companies in United States. While India�s

attractiveness is not questioned, the sustainability of its leadership to a large extent

depends on its ability to sustain the cost competitiveness. Indian ITES BPO industry

needs to address the challenges in order to sustain its leadership position in the

industry. Rural BPO is the key lever in addressing the current challenges of ITES

BPO industry. Rural BPO provides great opportunities to the Service Provider,

Employees, Government and Rural Community. But there are challenges like

infrastructure, attracting talent, employability, etc. It appears that these challenges

need to be addressed in order to realise the potential opportunities.

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30. Article titled �Rural BPOs in India Growing Thanks to Lower Cost and Social Goals� published in www.outsourcing-center.com/2010-10-rural-bpos-in-india-growing-thanks-to-lower-cost-and-social-goals-article-41258.html� - by Beth Ellyn Rosenthal, Editor on October 1, 2010

31. Article titled �Rural BPOs Change Face of Indian Villages� authored by Jacob Cherian March 05, 2010 (published in www.groundreport.com/Business/Rural-BPOs-Change-Face-of-Indian-Villages/2919084)

32. Article titled � �Untapped Resources! Amazing Potential! TeNeT's Rural BPO Initiative� by Malhotra, S., Rathi, P., Gonsalves, T. A., Jhunjhimwala, A., Giri, T., 2007, in IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, Volume 241, Home Informatics and Telematics: ICT for the Next Billion, eds. Venkatesh, A.,Gonsalves, T., Monk, A., Buckner, K., (Boston: Springer), pp. 21-33.

33. Article titled �Rural BPOs creating jobs� published in the website on Jan 29, 2011 www.businesseconomics.in �by Tushar Kanti Mahanti

34. NASSCOM-Everest India BPO Study � �Roadmap 2012 Capitalizing the Expanding BPO Landscape� published in 2008

35. �Sustainable Tomorrow: Harnessing ICT Potential� a study report by Nasscom & TERI published in December 2011

36. 'The Rising Tide - Output and Employment Linkages of IT-ITES'- Study by Nasscom & CRISIL published in Feb 2007.

37. Rural Shoring � Upcoming Avenues for ITeS � Techbytes-Issue 7 � January, 2011, EY technology newsletter published by Ernst & Young

38. �India adds record 15.6 million mobile users in March� published in Reuters Canada, on Apr 22, 2009 (accessible at http://ca.reuters.com)

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39. DesiCrew�s Rural BPO, Chennai, India - Tracking DesiCrew�s rural BPO: 2 loni Malhotra Co-Founder, DesiCrew

Solutions; (Jan 2009 Issue) (Source: http://issuu.com/i4d_magazine)

40. An empirical study on job prospects in BPO: Indian perspective -Mehta, Dhermendra, Jitendra K. Sharma, and Naveen K. Mehta UTMS Journal of Economics 2 (1): 29�35. April 06, 2011

41. �900 Atalji Janasnehi Kendras across Karnataka become operational� published in the THE HINDU, dated 26th December 2012

42. TERI-NASSCOM Green ICT Report December, 2011 (Emerging locations)

43. NASSCOM-AT Kearney report on �Location Roadmap on IT-BPO growth � Assessment of 50 Leading Cities� (2008) (Tamil Nadu & Karnataka locations covered)

44. Final Report on Piloting Rural BPO Services Through Telecenters - RandhirDatta, Drishtee Foundation, 104023-001 of IDRC (2011)

45. Inclusive Business Models � Prospects and Challenges � �Rural Shores� (Aug 2012) Sourav Mukherji, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, a research study supported by Villgro Foundation, IDRC, CRDI and IIM(B) � Accessible at www.Villgro.org

46. Interview: Ashok Jhunjhunwala, (Professor, IIT Madras, Chennai, India) published in www.i4donline.net - Jan 2009 issue on Rural BPOs

47. �Challenges identified for the growth of the IT sector� published in THE HINDU (Coimbatore) on April 26, 2011

48. www.Nascomfoundation.org. (Star initiative://www.nasscomfoundation.org/get-engaged/impact-sourcing/categories/getting-the-next-generation-of-bpo-employees-work-ready.html)

49. Enhanced Rural BPO Policy, 2012 dated 1st June 2012 released by Tamil Nadu � accessible at http://www.elcot.in/rural_bpo_policy.php

50. �Rewriting India's Shared Services Playbook� by AT Kearney, released at the Conference on Managed Services and Alternative Business Models 2013 organised by CII on 8 February (accessible at www.atkearney.in)

51. A New Dawn: China�s Emerging Role in Global Outsourcing-KPMG Study (2009) � accessible at www.kpmg.de

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52. �Rural Sourcing Offers Way to Keep Jobs at Home�, David Markiewicz published in The Atlanta Journal �Constitution on February 11,2011 (accessible at www.ajc.com)

53. �Rural BPOs in Srilanka: Isuru: The face of BPO business in Sri Lanka� by Chanuka Wattegama published in i4d, January 2009. (Accessible at http://lirneasia.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/141.pdf)