The independent technology analyst finds that strong growth in emerging economies such as India and China is driving the global market forward as businesses in these regions wake up to the benefits of BPO.

According to Ovum's forecast, the BPO market in Greater China will increase at a CAGR of 16.1 per cent from the end of 2010 to the end of 2015. Meanwhile, India's market will increase by 15.7 per cent for the same period.

Ovum analyst Hansa Iyengar commented: "In the post-recession business environment, it has become imperative for enterprises to keep costs under tight control to maintain competitiveness. BPO eliminates the need to invest in people and systems to manage non-core processes, potentially reducing costs and increasing efficiency. By outsourcing these processes, enterprises can focus their resources on growing their core business.

"Moreover, BPO is also gaining ground in areas such as HR, engineering design, and research and development outsourcing. Enterprises are realising that outsourcing these areas can be an effective way to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and speed up go-to-market for new products, much in the same way that outsourcing back-office processes can."

According to Iyengar, it will be developed economies that will exploit these new BPO areas the most, with emerging markets newer to the arena choosing to test the water with first-generation outsourcing such as customer care, payroll processing, and helpdesks.

source: TOI