Till recently outsourcing was synonymous to Call centers or BPO units. While most go a part of the outsourcing pie in the form of Telesales calling, Inbound support, some got into data entry, data management, data conversion and high end technical services jobs. Still outbound calling forms the major part of the BPO services, with more and more call centers mushrooming and the business remaining largely the same the survival is a question mark for most. KPO is the next step in the industry and also the answer to "How will the ailing BPO service?". The trust developed through BPO is now being transformed into KPO. Companies overseas are willing to outsource more complex and high risk processes.

Knowledge Process Outsourcing:

Knowledge Process Outsourcing, a subset of the broader Business Process Outsourcing industry has become a buzzword in the outsourcing industry. Research studies and recent news articles have proclaimed rapid growth for this high margin, high value space. It can be described as the delivery of high-level, knowledge intense transaction and contact centre processes by people who have domain-specific, vertical skills.

With the increasing competitive nature of global businesses, process time for introducing products and services has shortened, and customers are demanding more quality in products and services provided. In this scenario enterprises are forced to adopt systems and business models that provide operational efficiency and add strategic value to their products and services.

Knowledge Process Outsourcing embraces global businesses by providing them high-end processes like valuation research, investment research, intellectual property, research and design, patent filing, development of automotive and aerospace industries, legal and insurance claims processing. It can enable enterprises to shorten design-to-market lead times, efficiently manage critical hardware, augment organizational effectiveness in business administration and provide research on markets, competition, products and services.

In the new knowledge economy, India is set to become the most preferred destination for Knowledge Process Outsourcing with its hoard of chartered accountants, doctors, engineers, lawyers and research analysts. Besides the huge talent pool other factors that attract many multinational companies to set up research and development centers in India are the favorable government regulations supporting R&D, IT facilities, cost savings and strong research infrastructure.

Many firms, especially in the developed economies like the United States and UK, are coming to the conclusion that if they can't be a world-class provider of service, then the best option is to partner with someone who can provide that level of service. This trend has begun to change the course of outsourcing and the nature of the modern businesses. The tasks that were once thought to lie at the core of the firm - the knowledge processes - are being outsourced. Not new to the outsourcing sector, India has set its eyes on becoming a global hub of the knowledge process outsourcing.

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