KPOs: India most sought after destination

India, it says, had world's 2nd largest reservoir of engineers, scientists and managers plus largest IT manpower.

India leads the pack for the most sought after destination for Knowledge Process Outsourcing and the KPO industry is estimated to generate 250,000 jobs in five years, a study by a leading staffing solutions company has said.

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With three million graduates per year, India has a distinct advantage over China as over six times more people go to the university in India compared to China, the study focussing on India released by Kelly Services India said.

India, it said, had the world's second largest reservoir of engineers, scientists and managers plus the largest pool of IT manpower with nearly 50 per cent plus fairly proficient in English.

It was, therefore, not surprising that most estimates project that India would corner two third size of the Global KPO business—an impressive USD 12 billion in next five years employing over a quarter million people, the whitepaper said.

According to the whitepaper, India was expected to achieve a very high growth rate in all the technically advanced segments of the KPO industry with Data and Market Research along with RandD in Medical/Pharma constituting 50 per cent plus of KPO business in India.

In the Indian context, KPO salaries could be 25-50 per cent higher than those offered to the same domain experts such as engineer, doctor, CA, lawyer, architect, biotechnologist, economist, statistician and MBAs, it said.

The KPO segment, it said, requires much higher technical/domain skill and business expertise, where India was expected to outperform virtually all countries for many years and hence would have a business edge for a long time.