Can Uganda BPO operators look to India for sub-contracting deals?

On top of the strategies already in place, Uganda’s nascent business process outsourcing (BPO) sector needs to look to India for sub-contracting deals to get the sector off the ground.
To be able to pull this off, the Ministry of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and the National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) need to work together with the private sector to build business alliances with top Indian BPO companies – if this is agreeable to the Indian operators.
This seems to be the view of Brad William, a keen watcher of the global BPO industry. William was reacting to a post titled “Uganda moves to implement BPO model” that was posted on this blog (Click Uganda).
William said India’s BPO industry has evolved and matured to present higher-end services that require judgment-based analysis and domain expertise, rather than function-specific, rules-based performance parameters alone.
Below is William’s argument:
As service providers strive to offer end-to-end services, we see BPO falling into different segments. At one end of the spectrum is the traditional rules-based transactional outsourcing; while at the other end is judgment-based transaction processing and full-service business process outsourcing.
India has won its spurs as the world’s outsourcing destination of choice. Currently the country has a commanding share of the global outsourcing market.
India is undoubtedly the most favored IT/BPO destination of the world. This raises the question why most of the big MNCs are interested in outsourcing their operations to BPOs in India.
The answer is very simple- India is home to large and skilled human resources. India has inherent strengths, which have made it a major success as an outsourcing destination.
India produces the largest number of graduates in the world. The name of India has become synonymous with that of BPOs and IT industry hence the name BPO India.
Besides being technically sound, the work force is proficient in English and work at lower wages in comparison to other developed countries of the world.
India also has a distinct advantage of being in a different time zone that gives it flexibility in working hours.
All these factors make the Indian BPOs more efficient and cost effective. In order to meet the growing international demand for lucrative, customer-interaction centers, many organizations worldwide are looking to BPO India.
A subset of outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) involves contracting the operations and responsibilities through a third party service provider.
From the last couple of years, the BPO industry has evolved as the most substantial sector in the Indian market. India has emerged as the most favored location for all BPO services across the globe.
This has accelerated the Indian economy to the heights, progressively boosting the statistics depicting the growth in the years to come and it has been however forecasted that by 2020, more than 80% of the world of business process outsourcing services will be served by the Indian companies.
Marked as the best place to attain superior quality services globally, the BPO industry is strengthening its foundation in India.
In January, Uganda launched her BPO model and strategy and one justification for this by ICT Minister Aggrey Awori is that MNC’s are finding rates in India to be very high and as a result will look to cheaper rates, which they will find in places like Uganda.
While Minister Awori is without a doubt spot on as far as rates are concerned, it looks like India will continue to attract BPO work while destinations like Uganda grow and build know how.
My feeling is Uganda would be better served if government pursued a working relationship with the government of India and indeed the Indian private sector beyond just getting BPO trainers from India. Why not encourage sub-contracting arrangements between big Indian BPO operators and Ugandan BPO operators.
By taking this direction or adding it into the Uganda BPO model and strategy, it would give a much needed shot in the hands of Uganda’s BPO operators considering that Uganda shares similar characteristics with India.