Outsourcing Advantages: Why Top Brands Choose India

Customer service and customer experience (CX) management have changed dramatically since the 1990s and early aughts. This is especially true in India, where the first wave of outsourcing — India 1.0 — led to media stories, movies and more, detailing issues with accents, cultural fit and quality

The History of Outsourcing in India

India has long been recognized as a location for offshore outsourcing. When outsourcing emerged in the 1980s as a business strategy that enabled organizations to refocus activities around their core business functions, organizations began moving their IT and back-office functions overseas and India was the go-to location. At first, these were “captive” teams, wholly owned subsidiaries located overseas. In 1997, G.E. Capital ran a trial project with 20 employees running back-office service operations. Over time, this pilot evolved to become one of the largest captive outsourcing companies in the world. It expanded to provide a wide range of processes across all of G.E.’s financial services and manufacturing businesses globally, paving the way for other organizations to also look towards India and the benefits of outsourcing.

A Modern Outsourcing Location

Now, it’s time to reconsider India. The new generation of globally savvy young professionals with strong English-language skills that make up India 2.0 has turned the country into one of the most sought-after locations for scalable, offshore customer support needs. India has, in fact, become the global CX hub for:

• Establishing a diversified and scalable customer support delivery platform
• Servicing across digital channels 
• Business continuity and disaster recovery planning

Scaling customer support with services in India results in lower operating costs, higher returns, access to a highly skilled workforce, timely issue resolution, and perhaps most importantly, increased efficiency and return on investment (ROI). These are just a few of the reasons why India is a business process outsourcing (BPO) market of choice.

Advantages of Outsourcing to India

1. A New Generation of English Speakers

The pandemic has had devastating effects on most countries, and yet India’s economy is projected to grow by 9.5% in 2021. One of the reasons for this rapid economic growth can be attributed to India’s movement away from relying on agriculture and towards a greater reliance on the delivery of services. With a population of 1.3 billion, India has the largest English-speaking population of any country globally. In addition, India has the second largest labor force in the world. These advantages make India one of the few locations, globally, that can easily scale from 10 to 10,000 English-speaking employees.

But it’s not just about quantity, because we cannot and should not overlook the quality of this unique labor pool. India is ranked as a global higher education leader, graduating 78 million young professionals in STEM fields. English is also taught from the initial stages in schools and being proficient is considered an advantageous step to achieving higher professional success throughout the country.

2. Connectivity

Internet service in India was first made available to the public in 1995 and since then, India has undergone a technological transformation. From little connectivity in 2014, India has become the largest, most connected nation in the world with 756 million internet users in 2020. This technology penetration and connectivity can be easily attributed to the increase in smartphone users, with India having over 500 million.

So how did India get here so quickly? India entered the 3G market in 2008 and brought faster mobile internet and improved data connectivity. A few years later in 2012, 4G services were launched in the city of Kolkata catapulting the telecom industry along its digital journey.

In June 2015 the Indian government committed and launched the Smart City initiative whose objective was to promote sustainable and inclusive cities that provide core infrastructures to its citizens. Robust IT connectivity and digitalization are included as “core infrastructure” elements.

As a result today the Indian telecoms industry is the second largest telecommunications industry in the world, with a subscriber base of more than 1.17 billion.  

3. Digital-First, Innovation-Ready Environment

Pandemic-related effects continue to wreak havoc on many sectors and industries in most countries, but not India’s IT sector. According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), during 2020-21, India’s IT sector is expected to grow by 2.3% to $194 billion. Just 20 years ago, India’s performance capabilities were limited to low-level IT work. However, in the last five years, India has leaped forward and now outpaces most countries. Innovation is fueled by people and India has no shortage of this resource. 

Support and investments from the Indian government have significantly improved the ease of doing business in the IT Industry, BPO and IT-enabled services. In fact, India has begun competing with Silicon Valley in digital transformation and innovation.

Sitel® India: Seamless and Scalable Customer Service

In 2015 Sitel Group® partnered with Avast, a Czech multinational cybersecurity software company headquartered in Prague, to provide sales and technical support in English, French, German and Japanese via voice, chat, remote, email and social media.

The Avast team needed to ramp headcount to meet pandemic-related surges, lower the average speed of answer (ASA), reduce chat channel customer abandonment and completely transition their chat queue from in-house to Sitel Group.

The results delivered by the team in Chennai, India exceeded performance expectations, including a 62-point increase in NPS while handling 95% of the call volume each month. This offshore outsourcing partnership continues to provide the services, skills and expertise not previously available in-house. 

The Sitel® India Footprint

As a global BPO provider, Sitel Group has made India a part of its foundation for CX delivery. Since opening its flagship site in Mumbai in 2000, Sitel® India has seen steady growth in the market.

With continued government support and both foreign and domestic investments, outsourcing to India should be considered as part of your global CX strategy or as a one-stop outsourcing hub. Sitel Group provides a wide variety of support from our India-based locations, including:

• Easy and scalable customer service support and customer experience solutions – voice and non-voice customer care, technical support, sales support and back-office solutions
• Delivering reliable results for customers while lowering operational costs and increasing efficiency
• Diversified delivery hubs: Gurgaon, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai with unique time zones support 24/7 service
• Multi-language capabilities: Supports 10+ languages, including English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin and Japanese
• Key verticals include: communications, retail, travel & hospitality, insurance and financial services 

A Renewed Value Proposition

To learn how brands can leverage India’s diversified model to deliver seamless and scalable customer service, download our whitepaper, India 2.0 at the Heart of a Renewed CX Value Proposition.