What happens to BPO and KPO industry after COVID-19

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) are the basic facilities that enable a company to focus on its core activity and give the coordination and liaison jobs with the customers or getting the valuable data and support from outside to other agencies which are known as BPO and KPO in the business jargon. The advantage to a company because of this outsourcing are manifold and it becomes evident when we look at the bottom-line of these companies at the end of the year.

It is true that due to the Covid-19 situation these outsourcing venture had a setback but interestingly their skeletons survived nicely in the working from the home mode and many of them now have excelled in that. I talked to many outsourcing agencies which were managing the show through participation of the employees from their home. They are happy about this new skill learned by the employees. So, once the corona is contained or eradicated, I fully hope that the outsourcing industry will come back to not only its earlier glory but is going to expand more as business houses have become too focussed in their main work rather to waste their time and energy in peripheral activities.

Today we are talking of specialisation and the generalists are losing the job opportunities. A good programmer in software industry is of no use if he is not expert in a particular regime. He has to provide a code commensurate with a technical situation which is unfortunately changing day by day due to technological advancements and that is why the experts giving us expert outsourcing is going to become a preferable mode then employ a person full time and pay for his trainings etc and then ask him to do the project by which time the project has already lost its business charm.

COVID 19 has hit both IT and BPO industries badly due to sluggish growth of the economy of most of the countries and India was not an exception. Knowledge Processing Outsourcing ( KPO) providing the service of outsourcing in the knowledge based areas were also affected in the last year.
The fall of GDP of US as well as the Europian countries will have the direct influence on Indian IT Industry in the current year since these markets account for over 80 percent of their export revenues. According to the latest report of credit rating agency ICRA, growth is expected to be hovering round 3-5 percent as against the earlier one being 6 - 8 percent in BPO and KPO industries.
The equation of supply and demand has disrupted due to the pandemic phase. Margins would be impacted heavily owing to sluggish economic growth in the current financial year 2021 - 2022.
In respect of IT Industries, it could recover gradually in the current financial year with some improvement in their credit profiles. Relating to business process outsourcing from India, recovery could be somewhat slow due to non matching of the staffs since some of the competent employees working in BPO have been retrenched due to bad economic phase. The BPO sectors need matching staffs to improve their efficiencies with the fresh recruitment of competent staffs.

COVID has made a big impact on BPO and KPO industry in India. Many BPOs and KPOs downsized the employees and many are jobless due to this move. But some companies continued their work using the work from home concept and they made good progress. Keeping in this mind and the further ease out of some condition by the government has now made the concept of work from home to work from anywhere in India.
In general, the industry suffered a big blow due to COVID and the growth has become very marginal. This problem is not specific alone to India but many other countries are also facing the problem. Slowly the movement is coming and in many places, normalcy is establishing. But the recovery may not be as expected in the year 2021-22. In the IT sector, the manufacturing sector we may see a little higher growth rate than in the BPO and KPO industry.
Slowly BPO and KPO industry will also pick up and chances of getting the old employee who are good and managed the show well are having higher chances of getting back their jobs. But 100% of people may not get the callback and they should try in new establishments. As of now the improvement started and may pick up in the next 4 or 5 months.