BPO Unplugged!

Neeraj Bhargava, the CEO of WNS Global Services, a major BPO player in India has written a piece in the DNA newspaper about BPO employees being underrated by other industries, especially the old brick-and-mortar kind... Here's what he had to say...

The Indian BPO industry employs around 4,00,000 people. About one out of ten of the BPO professionals manage other people, i.e. there are 40,000 managers in the industry. The BPO jobs pay well, people employed work in a globally savvy environment and learn to meet or exceed expectations of very demanding customers. Yet, BPO industry careers are often criticised and BPO jobs are referred to as boring and dead-end. These views are myopic and misguided.

Lets consider some basics. Good careers do not just (or sometimes necessarily) require a good degree or the most perfect opportunity from Day 1 out of college. You need to be a part of a growth industry which stretches people and creates opportunities for young and less experienced people to grow. And in BPO companies like WNS many twenty somethings have shown an amazing capability to take up more responsibility and become leaders at a very early age.

You also need to be in an environment where coaching, mentoring and learning are valued. While we may question the “Indian-ness” of accent neutralisation in BPO companies or the necessity of teaching presentation skills, project management, conference call handling, time management, stress management, etc, these skills form the building blocks of the “makeover” every college graduate needs to go through to become a polished professional. And working in an environment where Six Sigma and quality management are the norm, you learn how to truly satisfy a customer.

Ideally, you also should experience a meritocratic company with a progressive culture early in your career. If you are treated well early in your career, then you learn to treat others well. And that sets the tone for your becoming a good people manager, a skill immensely valued in BPO companies.

Finally, the skills you learn should be “fungible” or in other words useful and relevant in other fields. The BPO industry is not only about late night offshore services to global companies. Domestic BPO on processes like insurance claims handling, payments processing, customer service, third-party equity research, etc, will also grow rapidly. Improving your English, learning to lead people and gaining exposure to a global business environment also will prepare BPO professionals to play leadership in many other areas. As a country, we are hugely under-estimating the managerial potential of the BPO professionals and their ability to manage and even create new businesses.

And what is the big deal about the work initially being boring? Isn’t this the case in many other jobs? In my first year of work, I mostly photocopied documents as opposed to doing econometric research, which is what I was told I would do. But I did what I was asked to do and kept on asking for more. A year later, my boss “trusted” me enough to critique his work and write my own models.

It is the ability to win other people’s trust and having confidence in yourself that builds careers. And being with people who really care about giving your opportunities to grow and succeed. Who also truly value you and celebrate your success. Who succeed themselves and often become friends and mentors and open up new opportunities for you.

BPO companies in India are full of some very successful managers who on professional skills and managerial capabilities are second to none. As time goes by, these people will be valued and sought after within and outside the BPO industry. We are all (including BPO companies) not appreciating the positive side of the professional growth in the BPO industry and talking about it loudly and clearly. And therefore, BPO careers are underrated especially by those who are not a part of the industry.