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Research Outsourced!

In this age of globalization, every company is looking to tap into the international market. To survive andstay ahead in this cut throat competition, it is very essential for the companies to search for

opportunities to expand their presence. Marketing functions are no longer restricted to product related

functions like design and sales, but also towards capturing new markets vertically i.e., specializing in

specific abilities, or horizontally, i.e., expanding those abilities. For any company to think of

development, market research helps provide the necessary insight into possible options. However, due

to certain technical limitations and knowledge gaps, several companies have been observed to have

outsourced their market research functions to specialized firms. India has proved to be one of the major

outsourcing centers for such outsourced projects.

Several Market Research firms like IMRB International and Nielson India have been practicing this

business model for several years. With a lot of Indian companies looking to expand within the country

and with several international companies planning to venture into the Indian market, the knowledge of

consumer buying patterns and preferences would prove to be critical to success. The market research

functionality is not only responsible for data collection and entry but now also cater to data mining and

analysis. As per a recent report by ValueNotes, there are around 110 market research outsourcing

vendors present in the country. Although most of these MROs are multi-functional centers like BPOs and

KPOS, the specialized firms dealing with in depth market research continue to be the market leaders. In

the past, MROs have followed a low cost high volume approach towards the revenue model. However

with the increasing demand for various aspects like data analysis and decision making, MROs are set to

increase their servicing capacities at all levels from data collection to decision making for their

clients. According to Arun Jethmalani, CEO, ValueNotes, This period (up to 2010) will witness value

growth due to capacity addition in high-end services. Initially, the services outsourced were in modular

format and delivered through short-term project based engagements. However, over time vendors have

begun providing services in both transactional and tactical level activities performed by research

agencies. There is a clear industry trend towards integrated services.

The increasing demand for such onsite-offshore model of working, has led to an increase in theinternational market for Indian Market research firms as compared to the domestic market. The market

research outsourcing (MRO) industry has grown to $148 million in FY07, and is slated to reach $800

million by FY12 at a CAGR of 47% as per the reports by ValueNotes. With an ever increasing

international clientele, the vendors have been forced to adapt to a more organized delivery model. The

increasing trust that clients have on the service providers has forced the MROs into being more


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technically adapt and moving towards standardization. It wouldnt be a surprise to see the vendors

expand their service portfolios through improved use of technologies and strategic mergers.

One aspect where majority of the Indian research firms are lacking is on the technology front. Though

India is considered one of the major hubs of the software industry, Market Research industry in the

country is still at a very nascent stage. Most of the vendors are still using the very basic software while

handling the data analysis and data mining operations. One of the reasons cited for this is the lack of

expertise available in this field. Several BPOs and KPOs have extended their functionality into the area of

market research, but due to lack of technical knowledge and experts, they are not able to service clients

outside the basic functions of market research such as data collection. However, as software industry

moves ahead in leaps and bounds, the development of user friendly software like SPSS has led to an

improvement in the efficiency of the MROs and has allowed them increase their functioning capabilities.

The present dependence on face to face techniques due to lack of technologies, research methods are

expected to improve especially online with the increasing penetration on internet. The MRO industry

has also opened up a lot of employment opportunities for experts in the area of statistics and

mathematics. Since the assignments involve a lot of technical knowledge, MROs are always on a lookout

for hiring employees who have specialized in this field.

With MROs coming to terms with technology, the increasing demand in terms of services like data

mining, analytics etc and international players looking to enter the market through take over and

mergers, the industry is poised for an interesting growth phase in the years ahead.

http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles_various/outsourcing-market-research-210.asp

The need to conduct market research has changed over the years primarily driven by globalization, and rise incompetition, among other factors. The marketing function, which was earlier restricted to creating awareness andbuilding differentiators among products, has expanded and become central to the creation of these new products.

Large corporates are now spending anywhere from $5 m to $100 m on market research and analysis. Researchagencies too have tried to complement the changing needs of clients with professional management, consolidationand creation of value through both delivery mechanisms and interpretation. The increasing use of technology has ledto standardization and consolidation in the research industry, thus preparing the ground for greater outsourcing.

The Indian MRO space comprises over 110 vendors and most of these offer non -market research services also.However, interestingly, the leaders in the category are largely market research-focused firms and not necessarily thediversified BPO and KPO firms. Indian MRO vendors began with servicing fairly standardized research needs andare steadily moving up the value chain.

ValueNotes estimates that Indian MRO revenues stand at $148 m in FY07, and are expected to grow at a CAGR of36% to touch $800 m by FY12. According to Arun Jethmalani, CEO, ValueNotes, This period (up to 2010) willwitness value growth due to capacity addition in high-end services. Initially, the services outsourced were in modularformat and delivered through short-term project based engagements. However, over time vendors have begun
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providing services in both transactional and tactical level activities performed by research agencies. There is a clearindustry trend towards integrated services.

Going forward, Indian MRO companies are poised to move from research back-office operations to becomingstrategic partners in executing research.

The Indian vendor landscape for MRO services is made up of

Pure Play MRO Vendors, which are pioneers in this space like Ugam, Annik and Exevo Full service research firms in India like Prognosys and Tecnova KPOs offering services in verticals other than MRO like Evalueserve and Integreon Large BPOs like WNS and HCL Small BPO firms doing low end work like Cheers Interactive

We expect vendors to broaden their product/service portfolio, customer base, and geographical reach while addingglobal service delivery capabilities. Currently, vendors are rapidly scaling up their existing capabilities and are tryingto build differentiators through specialized offerings or efficient technology platforms. A critical success factor for Indiaas a rising destination for MRO services is acquiring and retaining talent. Says Pranav Dixit, Analyst at ValueNotes,Acquiring and retaining talent which can provide client ready output is critical towards achieving growth plans ofIndian MRO vendors. The high attrition and rising wage levels along with adverse rupee dollar ratio will impact the

profitability of the segment. These factors in turn could reduce the competitiveness of India over other destinationslike Philippines and Latin America.

Partnering with other entities in the MR value chain, marketing arrangements, and partnerships for high-end analyticsservices, strengthening front-end capabilities will be aggressively undertaken by Indian MRO vendors. According toNeeraja Kandala, Analyst at ValueNotes, "MRO industry might witness some mergers and acquisitions post 2009.While pure play vendors will continue to lead the MRO space; competition will intensify with the entry of large BPOs.End to end offerings will be the key to survival for pure-play MRO vendors."

The report: Market Research Outsourcing: The India Growth Story provides an overview of the buyer scenario and anin-depth analysis of the Indian vendor space along with profiles of major industry players. The report is designed tohelp:

Research companies looking to outsource/off-shore MRO services Large BPOs, MR software vendors exploring MRO opportunity Large research agencies, MR vendors like data collection agencies, programmers wanting to outsource their work Other potential vendors to assess opportunities in India MRO vendors to assess the competitive environment in India Venture capital companies looking for investment opportunities Researchers looking for detailed information on MRO services offshored to India

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Market Research Outsourcing - Executive Briefing by ValueNotes

Presenting findings of Buyer Survey and Funding in MRO

Mumbai, India, 06 March 2009

ValueNotes conducted an executivebriefing session, at RegusBusiness Center, Friday,March 6th, 2009 to present findings of their recently released report 'Market ResearchOutsourcing Buyer Survey'. The session was attended by senior executives from Ugam
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Solutions, Dexterity, Exevo, Annik Technology, Cross-Tab, TCS BPO, WNSGS, Integreon,IDC, and Datamatics, among others.

The event started off with a presentation by ValueNotes on the key findings and futureoutlook of the MRO industry. It was followed by panel discussions on the future of market

research offshoringbusinessand funding opportunities in MRO services.

While cost arbitrage has been a primary driver for offshoring, the surveybrings to light thatresearch agencies rate other factors like faster turnaround time, better quality of work asequally important. Interestingly, quality of work and client confidentiality issues emerged askeyconcerns towards offshoring.

While offshoring drivers and concerns remain similar across key markets like US andEurope, these markets differ significantly in their choice of offshoring destinations.

The MRO service provider landscape ranges from the captives of large research agencies toPure-play MROs, full service research firms, KPOs and large and medium BPO serviceproviders. The survey shows a clear inclination by research agencies towards using multipleoptions in offshoring. The larger research agencies have greater inclination to set upcaptives or employ specialized MRO service providers. Mid sized agencies prefer to work

with full service research agencies while smaller firms are most comfortable with serviceproviders of comparable size.

Today, while the MRO services industry is on a rapid growth path with research agenciesand corporates offshoring greater volumes and more complex work, the future growth will

be largely driven by niche opportunities in adjacent areas, developing capabilities to servethe relatively smaller research agencies and taking up more services higher up the valuechain.

The first panel discussed trends in the MRO industry and its future outlook in currenteconomic environment. Panelists included Sunil Mirani, CEO- Ugam Solutions, PravinShekhar, CEO- Dexterity, Alok Tayal, CEO- Exevo and V K Raman, CEO- TCS BPO,discussed strategic options to negotiate the economic downturn.

Commenting on the outlook for MRO services in recession , Sunil Mirani, CEO, UgamSolutions, opined that marketing budgets have taken a hit and there has been retrenchmentof work (volumes), however, with some companies offshoring and some preferring not tooffshore, net-net the equation willbalance out. Alok Tayal, CEO Exevo highlighted anopportunity due to increase in cost pressures.

Panelists agreed that MRO service providers will have to look at additional opportunitiesand focus on delivering technology driven solutions in near future.

The second panel discussion focused on funding in the knowledge services segment andexplored reasons for comparatively lower funding in MRO services segment. Panelistsincluded Rahul Sahgal, President and CEO, Annik Technology, Manish Modi, President,Exevo and Ashwin Mittal, Director, Cross-Tab.
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While exploring reasons for lower level of VC funding, especially in MRO services, panelistsagreed that high valuations and smaller scale in MRO were factors that weakened itsattractiveness for funding. Manish Modi, President Exevo was of the opinion that venturecapitalists do not believe that the market for MRO is as large when compared with otherBPO segments. He said they typically look at investing much larger amounts (close to a

couple of millions dollars), which is huge for MRO service providers. If an investor were tosell his/ her stake it would be an attractive opportunity for a larger MRO company or largeBPOs. Rahul Sahgal of Annik opined that BPOs or larger MRO companies themselves will

be a logical option to buy a MRO company if an investor looks to sell out its stake. ManishModi of Exevo, was of the opinion that the ultimate exit to any funding is through an IPO.This was debated by the panel.

On the subject of attracting VC funding, Ashwin Mittal of Cross-Tab emphasized theimportance to attract and retain best-of-the-class talent; a measure to demonstratecapabilities. Manish Modi, on the other hand, highlighted the need to identify betteropportunities in the near future but something that people are not doing currently.

http://www.bpoindia.org/news/presenting-findings-buyer-survey-funding-mro-2009-03-06.shtml

The Indian Outsourcing Industry

Market Research Comes to India

After the BPO and KPO industry, Market Research firms have ventured into the Indian outsourcing

industry to capitalize on the onsite-offshore model of delivery.

In this age of globalization, every company is looking to tap into the international market. Tosurvive and stay ahead in this cut throat competition, it is very essential for the companies tosearch for opportunities to expand their presence. Marketing functions are now not onlyrestricted to product related functions like design and sales, but also towards capturing newmarkets through:

vertical - specializing in house abilities

horizontal - expanding in house functions.

For any company to think of development, market research helps provide the necessary insight

into possible options. However, due to certain technical limitations and knowledge gaps, severalcompanies have been observed to have outsourced their market research functions to specializedfirms. India has proved to be one of the major outsourcing centers for such outsourced projects.

Market Research Outsourcing (MRO) catching up with BPO and KPOs

Several market research firms like IMRB International, Nielson India, et al have been practicingthis business model for several years. With a lot of Indian companies looking to expand within
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the country and with several International companies planning to venture into the Indian market,the knowledge of consumer buying patterns and preferences may prove to be critical to success.The market research functionality is not only responsible for data collection and entry but nowalso cater to data mining and analysis. As per a recent report by ValueNotes, there are around110 Market Research Outsourcing vendors present in the country. Although most of these MROs

are multi-functional centers like BPOs and KPOS, the specialized firms dealing with in-depthmarket research continue to be the market leaders. In the past the MROs have followed a lowcost high volume approach towards the revenue model.

Diversifying services

With the increasing demand for various aspects like data analysis and decision making, theMROs are set to increase their servicing capacities at all levels: Data collection to decisionmaking, for their clients. Arun Jethmalani, CEO, ValueNotes, noted in the reportMarketResearch Outsourcing: The India Growth StoryThis period (up to 2010) will witness valuegrowth due to capacity addition in high-end services. Initially, the services outsourced were in

modular format and delivered through short-term project based engagements. However, overtime vendors have begun providing services in both transactional and tactical level activitiesperformed by research agencies. There is a clear industry trend towards integrated services.

The Market Forecast

The increasing demand for such onsite- offshore model of working, has led to an increase inthe international market for Indian Market research firms as compared to the domestic market.The market research outsourcing (MRO) industry has grown to $148 million in FY07, and isslated to reach $800 million by FY12 at a CAGR of 47% as per the article onhttp://www.bpoindia.org. With an ever increasing international clientele, the vendors have been

forced to adapt to a more organized delivery model. The increasing trust that clients have on theservice providers has forced the MROs into being more technically adapt and moving towardsstandardization. It wouldnt be a surprise to see the vendors expand their service portfoliosthrough improved use of technologies and strategic mergers.

Technical Glitches

One aspect where many Indian research firms are lacking is on the technology front. ThoughIndia is considered to be one of the major hubs of the software industry, the market researchindustry in the country is still at a very nascent stage. Most of the vendors are still using the verybasic software while handling the data analysis and data mining operations. One of the reasons

cited for this is the lack of expertise available in this field. Several BPOs and KPOs haveextended their functionality into the area of market research, but due to lack of technicalknowledge and experts, they are not able to service clients outside the basic functions of marketresearch such as data collection. However, as the software industry moves ahead in leaps andbounds, the development of user friendly software like SPSS has led to an improvement in theefficiency of the MROs and has allowed them increase their functioning capabilities. Despite thepresent dependence on face to face techniques due to lack of technologies, research methods areexpected to improve, especially online with increasing penetration on internet.
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The Future is Bright

The MRO industry has opened up a lot of employment opportunities for experts in the area ofstatistics and mathematics. Since the assignments involve a lot of technical knowledge, theMROs are always on a look out for hiring employees who have specialized in this field. With the

MROs coming to terms with technology, the increasing demand in terms of services like datamining, analytics, etc. and international players looking to enter the market through take overand mergers, the industry is poised for an interesting growth phase in the years ahead.

http://www.suite101.com/content/the-indian-outsourcing-industry-a192285

Research

The Market Research Outsourcing services: An emerging opportunity for India

The NASSCOM Research Group has recently announced its special report on Market ResearchOutsourcing, a service involving the outsourcing of research activities such as market research design,data collection, data processing, analysis, and reporting. While global market research revenues were ofthe order of USD 24.6 billion in 2006, the market research outsourcing services market in India iscurrently pegged at USD 148 Million. They are estimated to grow to USD 800 Million by 2012 at acompounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 40 percent.

Market trends indicate that while earlier, research requirements from clients in India used to be servicedby internal research teams, or external research suppliers, today, they are being taken care of by marketresearch outsourcing services providers.

There are currently over 100 service providers in India who offer offshored market research services from

India. These include MRO vendors, full service research agencies providing syndicated services,customized services and Internet services; large BPOs engaged in providing outsourced services acrosssegments, market research outsourcing being one of them; KPOs that provide a services such asanalytics, business and financial research, and also market research and small BPOs, offering a range oflow skill services on a smaller scale.

Some of the other highlights of the industry included the following:

Over 7500 people were employed in offshored market research services in India in 2007, anumber expected to go up to 32900 people by 2012, at a CAGR of 34.4 percent

Third party vendors employed around three-fourths of the total manpower in the industry whilecaptives of research agencies employed over one fourth of the total manpower in FY07

Some of the emerging high potential areas that are being targeted by Indian Research OutsourcingService providers include research design through social networking/Web 2.0, mobile data collection,

media generated or user generated data, blog mining of social networking sites, Report generation andautomation, vertical segment analytics and larger scale project management, including full scale panelmanagement.

The Indian market Research Outsourcing service providers are offering a strong value Proposition tocustomers based on their adoption of new Online Research Models that are region agnostic, their cost

effective Delivery Models, scalability, Domain and Research Expertize, increased productivity due to a
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shorter research cycle and propagation of technology in Market Research.

According to the NASSCOM report, going forward, Indian research service providers can make a deeperimpact on the market provided they understand client requirements and client proximity, maintain high

productivity standards, data security and software knowledge, expand engagement model coverage,overcome cultural and language barriers, retain talent and build strong industry-academia linkages.

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Knowledge Process Outsourcing

The evolution and maturity of the Indian BPO sector has given

birth to yet another wave in the global outsourcing scene:KPO

or Knowledge Process Outsourcing. The success in outsourcing

business process operations to India has encouraged many

firms to start outsourcing their high-end knowledge work as well.

Cost savings, operational efficiencies, access to a highly

talented workforce and improved quality are all underlying

expectations in offshoring high-end processes to India.

India's intellectual potential

The myth that Indian companies can only provide "software

coolies" is soon changing to the reality of Indian companies

being capable of almost anything, even rocket science! India

has a large pool of knowledge workers in various sectors

ranging from Pharmacy, Medicine, Law, Biotechnology,

Education & Training, Engineering, Analytics, Design &

Animation, Research & Development, Paralegal Content and

even Intelligence services.

This talent is soon being discovered and tapped by leading

businesses across the globe resulting in the outsourcing of high-

end processes to low-wage destinations. Hence Knowledge

Process Outsourcing involves offshoring of knowledge intensive business processes that require specialized

domain expertise.

The future of KPO

According to a report by GlobalSourcingNow, the Global Knowledge Process Outsourcing industry (KPO) is

expected to reach USD 17 billion by 2010, of which USD 12 billion would be outsourced to India . In addition,

the Indian KPO sector is also expected to employ more than 250,000 KPO professionals by 2010, compared

with the current figure of 25,000 employees. A report by Evalueserve predicts that India will capture more than
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70 percent of the KPO outsourcing sector by 2010. Apart from India, countries such as Russia, China, the

Czech Republic, Ireland, and Israel are also expected to join the KPO industry.

Comparison of Opportunity in BPO and KPO markets

Low-end outsourcing services have an expected Cumulative Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 26% by 2010. In

contrast, the global market is poised for an expected CAGR of 46% by 2010. The following figure demonstratesthe expected growth in the BPO and KPO markets over the next seven years.

What high-end services can be outsourced to the Indian KPO sector?

Here are some KPO services that can be outsourced to India:

Research & Development

Business and Technical Analysis

Learning Solutions

Animation & Design

Business & Market Research

Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology

Medical Services

Writing & Content Development

Legal Services

Intellectual Property (IP) Research

Data Analytics

Network Management

Training & Consultancy

The challenges in KPO

KPO delivers high value to organizations by providing domain-based processes and business expertise rather

than just process expertise. These processes demand advancedanalytical and specialized skillof knowledge
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workers that have domain experience to their credit. Therefore outsourcing of knowledge processes face more

challenges than BPO (Business Process Outsourcing). Some of the challenges involved in KPO will be

maintaining higher quality standards, investment in KPO infrastructure, the lack of talent pool, requirement of

higher level of control, confidentiality and enhanced risk management.

Comparing these challenges with the Indian IT and ITES service providers, it is not surprising that India hasbeen ranked the most preferred KPO outsourcing destination owing to the country's large talent pool, quality IT

training, friendly government policies and low labor costs.

India is well equipped to meet this emerging sector's challenges and all set to be the global KPO hub.

http://www.outsource2india.com/why_india/articles/KPO.asp

KPO Companies SG Analytics is leading

KPO outsourcing, market research

companies and investment research

Commercial real estate in Indiarecovering from the downtrend

Commercial real estate in India was hit the worst during the economic meltdown in the second

half of 2008. Commercial rentals in top metros plummeted by more than 30-40%. Lately,following the residential segment, the commercial segment has started showings signs ofrecovery. With the economy back on a high growth trajectory and the ambitious hiring plans ofoutsourcing services and KPO companies, the demand for commercial space is poised to rise.Market research depicts an additional demand for ~243 mn sft of commercial space across Indiato be generated during 2010-2013. While Bangalore leads with the highest demand forcommercial space, NCR (National Capital Region) is catching up owed to the emergence ofoutsourcing services, data management, equity research, analytical research, market research,business analysis and research companies in Gurgaon and Noida over the past few years.

Indias outsourcing services/off-shoring industryan introduction

The genesis of outsourcing services lies in the fact that labour cant be freely traded in the globalmarket, while commodities and capital can. The trend towards outsourcing services to India andother low cost destinations began in the early 1990s. It was primarily driven by the cross borderarbitrage that these destinations offer. Many international outsourcing companies reaped thebenefits of this arbitrage by sourcing their production or service operations (initially low-enddata management to more complex KPO services like equity research, analytical research andinvestment research etc) to lower-wage emerging-market country like India.
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In 2009, Indias share of the global offshoring market valued at USD 94 billion was nearly 51%;thus, providing immense potential for expansion, as the global offshoring market is still a smallfraction of the global outsourcing services industry valued at USD235 billion as on 2009. Thisprovides a huge scope to the Indian IT, outsourcing services and KPO companies to create newservice offerings and widen their geographical reach by entering newer regions. In the next few

years, we expect the labor cost arbitrage offered by India to generate stronger interest for theoutsourcing services / KPO companies to enter into the country.

The Indian KPO services industry is expected to reach ~USD6 bn in revenues in 2010-11 and~USD10 bn by 2013-14. These KPO companies provide a wide range of solutions including datamanagement, research analytics, equity research, market research, investment research, businessanalysis and business research etc. It is expected that in the coming years both the volume andcomplexity of the work (especially equity research, market research, analytical research etc)being outsourced to Indian KPO companies, will increase.

Corporate real estate driven by outsourcing services/off-shoring industry

Commercial real estate is further subdivided into Corporate (Office), Retail and Hotels.Corporate real estate still remains in its infancy in India with the first A grade classified officeonly dating back to the mid 1990s. Currently, all major Indian metropolitan cities boast a

substantial amount of A grade office space. The initial waves, in the early 1990s, of Western

companies outsourcing services to India were accompanied by an acceptance of any kind offacility available, irrespective of the cost. However, these companies were not accessing thequality of corporate real estate and services available elsewhere in the world. Only recently thelocal property developers started to fully comprehend the workspace specifications required forIT-enabled outsourcing services or KPO services. This local development, in addition to greaterexposure from international service providers, is beginning to enable the delivery of quality real

estate solutions at economical costs suitable for BPO/KPO companies.

Business outsourcingoverall impact assessment

In 2006, the total supply of commercial office space (grade-A, non-captive) in National CapitalRegion (NCR), Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai together was recorded in therange of 4045 million sq. ft (according to E&Y estimates). The absorption was primarily drivenby the IT/ITES industry, which accounted for almost 7075% of total absorption. Thereafter, awhopping 47 million sqft of absorption was seen in 2007 of which ~70% was absorbed by theIT/ITES sector. Office rentals have been rising in harmony with demand at 30-40% per annumfrom 2005 to 2008. However, during the recession a geographic de-concentration of the realestate activity was observed 1) from large metros like Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai and NCR totier II and tier III cities (such as Chandigarh, Chennai, Jaipur, Pune, Hyderabad, Kochi andVisakhapatnam) and 2) from Central Business Districts (CBDs) to Secondary and PeripheralBusiness Districts (SBDs and PBDs). This transition has been driven primarily by the shift of IT-BPO & KPO companies to these less expensive destinations.

A substantial downsizing of operations became the order of the day for the outsourcingcompanies hit by the recession. Consequently, the absorption of commercial space fell drastically


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to 37mn sft in 2008 and further to 26mn sft in 2009. Most micro-markets across the countrywitnessed a 15-25% decline in rentals in 2009, as compared to 2008. However, the story took anew turn in 2010, wherein the decline has slowed to almost zero and new projects have beenannounced.

The future looks vivid with promising growth forecasts

The Global IT outsourcing services industry is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% to USD292 bn in 2013 as companies riding out of recession harness the need for information technologyto retain competitive advantage. With the Indian economy estimated to grow above 7% in thenear future, robust demand for office space is expected from companies, particularly in theIT/ITeS, KPO outsourcing, and analytical research services. Outsourcing services or BPO &KPO companies has emerged as key drivers of commercial real estate in Indias metro cities andis expected to generate a demand for 100-125mn sft of office space over the next five years.Market research pegs returns from realty in India at an average of 15% annually with atremendous upsurge in commercial real estate on account of the Indian BPO/KPO services

boom.

Lease rentals have been picking up steadily and there is a huge demand for quality infrastructure.Market research forecasts office rents to appreciate by mid-2011 and that more outrightpurchases would be made by MNCs and private equity firms. Additionally, IT/ITES andoutsourcing companies will continue to account for 60-70% of office demand, furtheremphasizing the impact of the outsourcing services/KPO services industry on the commercialreal estate market in India.

KPO Companies SG Analytics is leading KPO outsourcing, market research companies andinvestment research. Description: KPO Companies specialist SG Analytics is a leading KPO

outsourcing which provides a wide range of services to market research Companies, marketprimary research Companies, equity research firms and kpo companies. Keywords: equityresearch outsourcing, kpo outsourcing, research analytics, outsourcing market research, kposervices, market primary research, equity research firms, kpo companies, equity research, marketresearch companies, investment research, research and analytics, research companies

http://researchml.org/kpo-companies-sg-analytics-is-leading-kpo-outsourcing-market-research-companies-and-investment-research/

India to become outsourcing hub for market research A+ A-

Business Standard, May 5, 2007
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From just a 600 sq ft office in Basaveshwaranagar in Bangalore, about 100 researchers, mostly MBAs,

researchers and post-graduates in commerce, statistics and economics, are busy with complex market

research projects for large global firms based in the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, France and Australia.

Jasal Shah, the CEO of the company Markelytics Solutions says that the small place is almost bursting atits seams with projects from abroad.

We have two shifts to deliver the projects on time. But, we feel we have to spread out to newer

locations to accommodate more people as we plan to add another 150 by the end of this year, says

Shah, a former IDC analyst and an early entrant to the growing market research outsourcing (MRO)

space.

Over the last couple of years, the Indian landscape for outsourced market research is changing rapidly.

While most of the global firms like Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS), Market Tools and Green field online are

operating large captives in India, many Indian companies are gearing up to tap opportunities in market

research outsourcing.

India today has about 15 MR firms including large ones like Ugam Solutions, Annik Systems, Cross-Tab

and Markelytics. Even BPO firms like WNS and knowledge process outsourcing firm like eValueserve

have significant presence in this field.

Their customer list also includes large firms and Fortune 1000 companies. Cross-Tab, for example, claims

to be serving customers like BBC, IBM, Microsoft, MSN, Oracle, Standard Chartered, Nike among others.

Markelytics claims to have successfully delivered over 300 projects for over 30 customers across the

globe, including SAP, BBC, Gallo and Gallup.

I believe it is a high growth area and outsourcing has become an integral part of the strategic planning

of all major MR firms. We have been doing this since 2000 and the capability in India has matured

enough to handle more and more complex tasks in the industry, said Rahul Sahgal, president & CEO of

Annik Systems, a Gurgaon-based MR firm.

According to European Society of Market Research (ESOMAR), a global association of market research

professionals, the global market research industry is estimated to be about $21 billion, of which 50

percent can be outsourced.


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The Nasscom-McKinsey ITeS report puts the opportunity in the MR domain in excess of $5 billion.

Industry sources say that most of the MR firms in India are growing at more than 80 percent year-on-

year and expected to grow further in the next two years.

http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=51406
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