Evaluserve report predicts Indian KPO Boom

This link here [may require subscription.. not sure] talks about the impending boom in Indian KPO market. Headline says – India to dominate global KPO mkt; create 1.8 lakh new jobs

“The Evalueserve report also states in detail about the few sub-sectors within the KPO industry that are expected to do well. These include banking, finance, securities and insurance research, data mining and analytics and contract research organizations and biotech services.”

Thats some good news ;). Having decided to make a career in this field, and still watching it find its firm feet, I think these occasional headlines are very importants for us to feel confident about the career choice we have made.

Acquisitions – Offloading Offshore Analytics

This one merits a mention

– WNS is acquiring Marketics, an offshore analytics firm founded by some ex-P&G CMK senior professionals. People like Shankar Maruwada, Ramki, etc. are extremely smart people. A $65 MM cash deal for its 200 people, with $30MM upfront and $35MM earnout in an year, does show the smartness of the deal.

Isn’t this somewhat an action replay of how Inductis was taken over by EXL (another large BPO company in India). Did things really change at Inductis? Not a lot. There were a lot of positive reinforcements, with a few bad things. The worst being the uncertainty around people’s career.
The best being a sudden n-fold increase in sales staff. The to-be-debated item of the roster was “can BPO sales guys sell analytics projects, which are so specialized skillset driven ?”

My friends at Marketics (like The Other Side) – I wonder what they are feeling now.

That aside, why do I think this is an important news item –

1. The role of offshore analytics has gone up tremendously – Examples – Inductis doing it in 2001, Companies such as Marketics, Modelytics, MarketRx, Absolute data, Zeus Associates, etc. have been catering to analytics needs of companies across the globe.

2. A lot of these companies have done tremendously well as start ups and have managed to build the first level of growth. However, to hit the next level, most of the companies will need a higher amount of funding. That comes either through PE firms, VC firms, Investors who may want to fool around with the way the company is being run. Or, through buyouts like the Inductis one, where the provider continues to work as an independent company. But the acquisition is more often than not driven by the need to have more funds.

3. Most of these companies were set up by young, ambitious individuals who spotted an opportunity in their respective consulting/core organizations (Pharma folks starting Market Rx, MMG consultants starting Inductis, P&G folks starting Marketics). A lot of these people probably are looking for big money (one of the drivers of entrepreneurial fire is money). Its simpy a question of timing your investment. Well, sell high!

4. Does the scale of the game change for the offshore analytics providers????

Well.. lets keep talking about these!