India’s Educated Outsourcing Workforce

The Americas and Europe are the largest customers for the Indian outsourcing industry and account for 60% and 31% respectively of IT and BPO exports. The largest vertical sectors are financial services (41%), high-tech/ telecom (20%), manufacturing (17%) and retail (8%).  In 2009 the IT and BPO export industries employed about 2.2 million people.

The 2008-2009 global recession has had a negative impact on outsourcing growth in India, but the sector is experiencing a turn-around in 2010. Many US and European companies are still cautions about the speed or staying power of the 2010 economic recovery and thus are looking to maintain a low cost base in locations such as India. We expect IT and BPO outsourcing in India to bounce back to double digit growth rates in 2010.

India is considered one of the top outsourcing locations not just because of low costs, but also for the large English-speaking workforce.  The workforce is close to half a billion people, second only to China and three times the size of the United States.

One of the major players in the offshore outsourcing industry, India stands out from the rest in terms of well educated, talented, low cost and English speaking workforce, excellent IT and networking infrastructure, a fairly stable political scenario, friendly laws and well laid taxes and quality certified software firms. The offshore outsourcing market in India is ever growing and has produced many success stories making India a popular offshore outsourcing destination for IT related and other BPO services.

Work Force and Offshore Outsourcing Sector Size

Based on this workforce and its early entry into the global sourcing market, India has built the largest export sector for IT services. India exports about $50 billion in computer and IT related service. This is about four times that of the United States and almost an order of magnitude greater than any other location. In the BPO sector, India has a leading position, but not as dominant as in IT. Based on the IMF measures of the export of miscellaneous business services, an imperfect proxy for BPO services, India is in the top three, but falls behind the United States and China. 

Education and Skills

The rapid growth in outsourcing to India has been built on the availability of educated and skilled workers. India's universities produce almost 3 million new graduates each year with about 16 percent focusing on science and technology. The total number of graduates is similar to that of the United States and only second to China.

 

The challenge in India is variability. India has some of the most competitive universities in the world such as the India Institutes of Technology. However, many university programs are substandard and estimates by McKinsey and NASSCOM indicate that only 25%-40% of Indian graduates are readily employable. To combat these challenges over the medium-term, the large India players have set up massive pre-employment training programs.

Language

Another significant advantage for India is the prevalence of English language skills. English is typically the language of instruction at Indian universities thus most university educated Indians have a good grasp of English. However, if you have experienced the performance of a low end Indian call center, you know that the quality of English language skills can vary. Exact figures on the share of Indians that can speak English differ, but here we have referenced English As a Global Language which estimates about 20% of the population.

Technological Readiness

The level of technological readiness of Indian resources is relatively good. India has very low home based internet access rates, however the impact is minimized via high accessibility in universities and the workplace.

In summary, one of the key benefits to outsourcing to India is its large, relatively skilled, English-speaking workforce. However, India's education infrastructure is under increasing strain and without improvements India will see slower IT and BPO growth rates and higher costs in the not too distant future.

How we at Staff India recruit your degree-level educated employee

Our staff are hand picked by our directors. Our staff go through a 3 stage interview process. This ensures we select the most capable candidates to work for Staff India and eventually for our clients.

Stage 1: A screening phase when hundreds of applicants will be assessed for the basic English and Maths skills.

Stage 2: A one to one interview with our Managers to assess the applicants intelligence, enthusiasm, dedication and motivation.

Stage 3: A workshop day to filter the best of the best through simulating real working day for a UK company.

All our staff are educated to degree level. They possess excellent English speaking and writing skills.

All our staff are computer literature possessing competent skills in usage of MS Windows, MS Office and various other packages as well as extensive exposure to the internet. The vast majority of the day to day work of our staff is computer based.

Our staff undergo regular training with the view to improve their knowledge and skills with the ever changing global market.

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