A set of recent promotional policies from the Government of India has fired up the IT scenario leading to the emergence of good business opportunity for setting up International Call Centers in India.

Indian business houses are also realizing the importance of Customers Relations Managements (CRM & ECRM.)

It is worth repeating the factor advantages enjoyed by India, namely - the largest English speaking population after US, backed up with a compelling pull of reasonable-salaries yet highly-skilled and educated manpower in whole range of services like Engineering, Medical, Agricultural, Software, Hardware, and what have you. It is thus feasible to invite US entities to set up their Call Centers in India, or outsource their Call Center needs from India.

Indian Call Center industry has already grown to the level of 60 companies with annual business volumes expected to cross Rs. 1,500 Crores employing about 80,000 agents.

Number of companies is growing every month, 60 companies at present are likely to grow to 300 companies with prospect of business going up from Rs.1500 Crores to Rs. 5000 Crores By March 2002.

Global Customer Relationship Management business is a big growth area; International Data Corporation study estimates the size of the global market to be order of $ 90 billions by 2003.

"In the US, 65% of the expenditure of a Call Center is on account of manpower (for work force). However, in India, as much as 65% of the running expenditure is on the international lease circuit charges", remarked Dr. N.P.Sen, CEO, SM Telesys Ltd., who are setting up a large Call Center of 300+300 positions in Noida.

Whereas, in the US context most important task comprises of optimizing manpower costs; in Indian scenario the focus shifts to optimization of International circuit leased charges. Emphasized Dr. Sen.

It is not only the English speaking capability of the manpower, which is required for the Call Center but the "Intelligence" being conveyed i.e., the knowledge of the product and services being serviced by the Call Center agent is important

For example, Call Center servicing a US computer company needs computer hardware engineers as Call Center agents. Similarly, a Call Center providing medical service needs to have the Doctor and paramedical staff sitting behind the Call Center positions. Similarly, a Call Center handling insurance business needs to have insurance agent sitting behind the Call Center position and Call Center handling the legal matters needs to have a lawyer fully conversant with the US while replying to a legal client.

Dr. N.P.Sen of SM Telesys Ltd., contends that while selecting the Call Center Staff 25% is the contribution of English knowledge; 25% is the contribution of clarity in speaking and listening; 20% is contribution of subject knowledge. The balance 30% surprisingly is accounted for by factors such as the sincerity, dedication and devotion to duty!

For India, to effectively capture this opportunity, a lot of training of manpower is required which might take considerable time. More than the training of the subject and mastery of the language, a specific orientation training program on sincerity, dedication and devotion to duty is necessary too. This is normally imparted in our schools and colleges yet their proper monitoring and testing is needed.