Domestic business is a long-term focus area for us

For Accenture?s BPO operation in India, domestic business is a strategic and long-term focus area. With 25 delivery centres across the country, the $21.6-billion global consulting giant is actively engaging in opportunities in the Indian market. PG Raghuraman, executive director (BPO), Asia Pacific, Accenture, tells FE?s Debojyoti Ghosh that it continues to add new industry offerings in India as clients move from just cost efficiency to business insight and innovation.

India being one of your largest operation, what is your global leadership’s focus in the Indian market? How do you see business here?

As a supply market, India is crucial to the BPO business. For Accenture BPO, India is among the largest locations in the world, contributing not just processing ability but also leadership on innovation, people management and industrialisation. So the importance is very high, and this is reflected in the focus that the global leadership has on India. As demand in India evolves and the economy grows, the Indian market will be critical to the future of BPOs, and we intend to address this through a strong strategic focus on the domestic market and clients.

Accenture?s BPO operation in India continues to grow at a good pace, driving new areas of thinking in innovation and analytics in our horizontal offerings. We also continue to add new industry offerings in India, which provide new BPO services catering to the evolving needs of specific industries. Clients are moving from focusing only on cost take-out and cost efficiency, to leveraging business insight and innovation to realise true business value.

What are the growth drivers?

Spurred by the current economic conditions, many companies are looking beyond immediate and sustained cost-savings to solutions to improve cash flow and drive top-line growth. We?re seeing particular client interest in finance and accounting BPO, procurement BPO and newer cross-industry services such as supply chain BPO services and engineering services.

We continue to see good interest in areas such as healthcare administration and insurance.

Also, companies are increasingly embracing a ?bundled? approach. They have begun to realise that the hidden costs of managing multiple providers are eating substantially into the value of the deals and into the effectiveness of the overall collaboration.

How are you planning to grow your domestic BPO business?

The domestic business is a strategic and long-term focus area for us. We are actively participating in opportunities in India. These include banking, finance, insurance and communications industries.

We are involving experts from across the globe, many of whom have seen the evolution of the domestic sector in their respective countries. This experience, combined with our understanding of the India market through our management consulting work, and industrialised strength in BPO, will enable us to support the most challenging of domestic engagements.

What are your expansion plans?

From a delivery centre perspective, we will continue to grow our centres in the larger cities as core existing areas. We will look to add supplemental centres in smaller cities in India. This approach needs to be aligned with our clients? needs, so the pace of growth will be driven by these factors. From a business perspective, India will continue to be on the leading edge of new services, so we expect to add new verticals and types of business.

The BPO industry in India is already struggling with talent crunch. How is Accenture addressing it?

Building ? not just hiring ? the talent pool in India to take this business to the next level is our biggest challenge and therefore, also the area where we see the greatest potential. This cannot just come from hiring or simple training; it has to be through intensive coaching from global experts and leaders, and providing the right set of experiences for the talent to evolve.

We have developed specific programmes for our high performing managers and leaders to address this. We have joint programmes with many premier educational institutions to build skills and train future leaders.