India's top 20 BPO export firms post revenues of Rs 32,246 crore in 2010-11

India's top business process outsourcing (BPO) companies posted revenues of Rs32,246 crore ($7 billion) in 2010-11 (April 2010-March 2011) maintaining the previous year's 13 per cent growth rate.

The number of people employed by top 20 BPO firms went up to 311,167, a 12 per cent rise over the previous year, and maintaining to a revenue productivity about Rs 10 lakh per employee a year, according to a data released by industry journal, Dataquest. 

The NYSE-listed Indian BPO firm Genpact grew 24 per cent to top the list of top 20 BPO firms with revenues of Rs5,680 crore in 2010-11. 

The BPO arm of India's software numero uno Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) grew a tad faster at 25 per cent, with revenues of Rs3,928 crore. TCS occupies a number two slot in the list of top 20 BPO exporters in India. 

Aegis BPO, an Essar group company, grew 28 per cent to occupy the third position with revenues of Rs2,352 crore.
 
After posting heady historic growth rates of the last decade, the BPO toppers showed signs of maturity with its growth rate lagging behind information technology sector's 20 toppers' growth rate of 25 per cent achieved in 2010-11 on the back of a negative growth of 8 per cent in 2009-10.

The next seven slots were occupied by Wipro BPO (revenue Rs2,249 crore, growth 7 per cent), Firstsource Solutions (Rs1,833 crore, 6 per cent), WNS Global Solutions (Rs1,685 crore, (-) minus 7 per cent), Infosys BPO (Rs1,545 crore, 12 per cent), Aditya Birla Minacs (Rs 1,518 crore, 8 per cent), Accenture India (Rs 1,436 crore, 27 per cent) and IBM Global Process Services (Rs 1,292 crore, 7 per cent). 

The research reveals little change in ranking in the top 10 BPO firms. No BPO firm witnessed more than two places jump or slide other than IBM Business Process Services, which dropped to No 10 (from No 7) as it was considered as a non-Indian company for the first time this year, following a restructuring in IBM earlier this year.
 
IBM had acquired Daksh eServices, an Indian BPO start-up in 2004 and had continued with it as a subsidiary with the name IBM Daksh till December 2010.
 
''The BPO industry is going through a major transformation with initiatives like building greater onshore capability, leveraging the cloud model and focusing on emerging markets,'' said Shyamanuja Das, Editor of Dataquest, who has been analysing the BPO segment for over a decade.

For the ranking, Dataquest took into account the entire revenue (other than India domestic revenue) of BPO companies that have their headquarters in India or had their first delivery centre in India. For other companies, it takes only the export revenue accrued from their India operations.
 
Among other major changes in the ranking table was a five-position jump by Hinduja Global Solutions from No 18 to No 13, which grew twice as much as the average growth.

HCL BSERV, one of the earliest IT firm-owned BPO units, saw the biggest slide (six positions), dropping from No 11 to 17 position in the Dataquest ranking. For HCL BSERV, it was a second successive year of revenue drop. 

The other company to have reported negative growth in the top 20 list for the second this year was MphasiS BPO that reported revenues of Rs 472 crore.

The journal will release market size of the entire BPO industry, including the contribution of captives, in September.