Another leading Indian BPO Training company joined the rapidly expanding BCI CTP network this May. Orion Calltech, India’s largest BPO training company in terms of volumes, was appointed a BCI Regional Network Certification Provider. ORION, notably has expanded rapidly across India and has commenced operations in Bhutan and Bangladesh. It training centers across more than 100 locations in these countries are completing preparations to launch BCI Certification Training activities by June 2010. This new inclusion in the BCI CTP network is yet another shot in the arm to its Mission Million initiative as ORION plans to groom 15000 BCI credentialed fresh BPO talents by 2011.

Even as BCI’s high-pitched activities across 30+ countries to produce 1 million BPO-trained and credentialed fresh talents under the Mission Million! program continues unrelentingly, it’s Certification Training Providers across the world are ready to mount an unprecedented campaign in their respective countries to help their local BPOs access the BCI Talent Pool with greater ease. For this BCI has developed, what will easily be the world’s largest ever global hiring platform for BPO recruiters cutting across domains and locations. Called HireEasy®, this platform makes it easy for BPOs and contact centers to hire fresh talents – duly trained and certified – FREE of any recruitment fee.  The talent-sapped BPOs have to just contact any of BCI’s Certification Training Providers in their respective locations and post their talent requirements. Initial research shows that apart from radically improving the talent quality and productivity by hiring BCI-Certified talents through this initiative, a typical BPO/ Contact Center with 100 seats can save a lot of expenses incurred in hiring by signing up on the HireEasy initiative. Interested BPOs and Hiring Managers can write to hireeasy@bpocertifications.com to know more and join this initiative.

From April, 2010, the BCI TMMS® will enter a new era. Marking a generational change, the Talent Management Master Standards of BCI have lived to their promise of remaining in step with global demands. This version is several paces ahead of what the earlier planned TMMS 1.5 was imagined to be and hence the latest release is named TMMS 2.0. The Release 2.0 (nee Release 1.5!) comes with several critical changes that sharpen even further the focus on the Talent Management differences between classic IT firms and those offering BPO services globally. One major vector in which the Release 2.0 exhibits considerable beefing-up isTalent Transformation. Several standards have been added to unequivocally enunciate the now well-established need for BPOs to have policies, processes and best practices that creatively facilitate “actual/ real” job enrichment and career growth of employees. Standards-bits have been introduced for the first time to also link talent-transformation and talent-performance effectiveness with hygiene factors and work climate. The stress onTalent Transformation in the new TMMS® Release 2.0 is reflected by the fact that Talent Transformation is now included as an integral Talent Management Quality Junction in both the versions (BTMQ-07® and BTMQ-10®) – to take care of the needs of a rapidly rising “species” of “marquee” BPOs that play in high-value market niches; service big-ticket clients and have workforce with evolved career aspirations. Notably; BCI has received BTMQ® credentialing requests from more than 10 such “niche” well-performing BPOs alone in the last two quarters.

True to its promise of remaining in step with global BPO demands, the BCI TMMS® (Talent Management Master Standards) is getting ready with its latest version. The Release 1.5 comes with several critical changes that sharpen even further the focus on the Talent Management differences between classic IT firms and those offering BPO services globally. One major vector in which the Release 1.5 exhibits considerable beefing-up isTalent Transformation. Several standards have been added to unequivocally enunciate the now well-established need for BPOs to have policies, processes and best practices that creatively facilitate “actual/ real” job enrichment and career growth of employees. Standards-bits have been introduced for the first time to also link talent-transformation and talent-performance effectiveness with hygiene factors and work climate. The stress on Talent Transformation in the new TMMS® Release 1.5 is reflected by the fact that Talent Transformation is now included as an integral TM Quality Junction even in the BTMQ®07 version as well – to take care of the needs of a rapidly rising “species” of “marquee” BPOs that play in high-value market niches; service big-ticket clients and have relatively small workforce with evolved aspirations.

Mauritius, a country with the bluest of seas in the world, is now well set to become a nation of bluest of true-blue BPOs. All thanks to the well-oiled joint initiative of OTAM, Attestado and BCI to create a pool of world-class BPO talents & professionals. Nothing attracts BPO investors like Talents and that’s exactly what Mauritius is preparing to have – a large reservoir of BPO talents – credentialed and trained on BCI standards. All OTAM member BPOs including Ceridian, Accenture etc. are in the process of nominating participants to the Certification Training programs managed by Attestado –BCI’s Chartered CTP (Certification training Provider) for Mauritius.

Most notably, other bodies like MCCI and MEF are actively participating in talent development activities and the BCI Certification programs will act as singular qualification benchmarks for BPO talents in the country. With this initiative, Mauritius also becomes a proud participant of BCI’s global Mission Million program.

It is expected that by end 2010, around 2000 BCI-certified fresh talents would be joining the Mauritian BPO talent pool.

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya becomes another proud participant in the BCI Mission Million program. The African BPO Academy (ABA), BCI’s authorized Chartered Training provider (CTP) in Kenya joined hands with this leading Kenyan institution to help JKUAT replicate in BPO Training the same path-breaking success as it did in IT training during the nineties. Sharply focused BPO training programs benchmarked with the BCI global HCMS21 standards are being offered to graduating JKUAT students to prepare them various BPO domains including Customer Interaction, Finance & Accounting, Transaction Processing and Technical Support. The ABA-JKUAT joint initiative expects to add at least 2000 BCI certified fresh BPO talents and the JKUAT Vice Chancellor Prof. Imbuga is taking steps to establish a Center of BPO Studies in the university to create what will be Kenya’s and possibly East Africa’s very first BPO Talent Factory.

Intensifying its efforts to assist emerging BPO nations in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe increase their global competitiveness in business process outsourcing; BCI launched the Quantum Leap® initiative earlier this month. Under this, BCI will identify top-performing BPOs and Contact Centers in each of these countries and implement the latest releases of the BCI TMMS and SDMS standards at a subsidized cost. The entities that finally complete their compliance to these standards will be awarded the BSDQ®/ BTMQ® certification. Notably, BCI is releasing its latest Talent Management Master Standards (TMMS) and Service Delivery Master Standards in April and July 2010 respectively.

The BCI Enterprise Standards Group expects that more than 40 large BPO/ Contact Center entities shall directly benefit under the Quantum Leap® initiative in year 2010 alone and will help promote consciousness about systems and process excellence among other BPOs in these countries.

Richardson; August 19, 2009 – Even as several emerging BPO destinations in Africa and parts of West Asia begin to experience the power of BCI credentialing and BPO human competence standards and the network of BCI authorized CTPs (Certification Training Providers) spreads out deeper in these regions, the path has been paved also for the establishment of the long-awaited virtual pre-certification training network on the world wide web. The BCI CTP Management Team finally got the long-awaited approval from the BCI Board in Texas, for commencing the process of establishing a global Virtual CTP Network (VCN), which would offer BPO training through a combination of online modes. The Virtual CTP Network (VCN) project would take about two years to complete from start to finish, though certain countries should begin to experience the online pre-certification training programs for select BCI Certifications by Q2, 2010. Numerous online training companies have applied to BCI to gain license for offering pre-certification training online through their portals and online engines and the Technical Audit process is now on to shortlist organizations that would get the first opportunity to join the BCI VCN. When complete, the VCN is expected to cater to a worldwide audience of almost 6 million BPO, call center and outsourcing professionals annually.

The BPO wave has left no shore untouched and West Asia too, seems appreciably smitten by the attractive economic possibilities that BPO is pregnant with. With recession breaking the backs of the construction, trading and oil-based industries, all Middle Eastern governments are looking at alternatives to perk up their respective economies. In recent years, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have all broken into the top 20 most attractive offshoring destinations, according to an index published by A.T. Kearney Inc.

One of West Asia’s leading training organizations ITC – the Integrated Training company, is leading the new phenomenon, which it has planned to spread across to all GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) member-countries – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman. ITC has just been appointed as BCI authorized Certification Training Provider (CTP) for the GCC countries and BCI expects that by end of 2010, GCC countries should have a BPO workforce of at least 2500 BCI certified professionals.

BCI’s footprint in Africa has grown by half a dozen nations in the last two quarters of 2009 and the latest addition is Nigeria. Though a relatively late joiner in the African BPO safari, Nigeria possesses several unique BPO-demanded strengths and the Nigerian government has finally begun looking at BPO as an industry of the future. Home to some of the Africa’s best managed telecom companies and rich and professional banks and financial institutions, in entire Africa, Nigeria does look to be at the cusp of at least the Call-Center revolution and there are enough signs that the country is anxious to join the non-voice BPO wave as well.

The world’s first credentialing programs for fresh-entrants in the KPO industry are finally ready for launch. The first two of these KPO credentialing programs, CFAP® (Certified Financial Analytics Professional) and CMAP® (Certified Marketing Analytics Professional) had successfully cleared the critical 3rd stage of validation in June 2009 and were awaiting final clearances from the BCI BPO Professional Certifications Council. These certifications are expected to create a fundamental impact on how the KPO industry identifies, develops, hires and manages young talents at the entry-level. The US$ 17 billion global KPO industry is on a growth swing and nations like India, Russia, China and Ireland, which are busy configuring and restructuring their KPO business competitiveness and delivery capabilities, are looking at specialist KPO credentials for their workforce to retain the edge they have won over the last few years.  Notably, the CFAP® and CMAP® programs credential young talents with KPO-matched educational backgrounds for KPO suitability on the basis of the BCI HCMS21 Standards, Release 3.1.

NIITUniqua (popularly known as “Uniqua”) India’s first training company dedicated to BPO and KPO capacity building was formally appointed a BCI Certification Training Provider partner. Formed as a joint venture between the IT Training leader NIIT and the BPO Leader Genpact, Uniqua offers industry-synchronized training programs for various levels of BPO employees including entry-level agents. Top BPO companies like HCL, MPhasis, WNS, 24/7 Customer, Wipro and Firstsource and numerous other leading BPO service-provider organizations are among Uniqua’s clients.

After becoming a BCI Certification Training Provider Partner, NIITUniqua BPO and KPO training programs now are expected to have an added edge: that of BCI International Certifications. This partnership beefs up Uniqua’s capabilities for offering value-added, credentialing-backed bouquet of training offerings to the US$ 15.0 billion Indian BPO industry for all 6-levels of BPO professionals –fresh associates, specialists, team leaders, managers, functional leaders and business leaders.

Uniqua has commenced preparations to launch BCI certification programs from all its training centers across India in phases. Equally importantly, this association has given Uniqua an opportunity to join BCI’s exciting Mission Million® initiative in which BCI and its Certification Training Provider Partners worldwide will create a pool of million fresh BPO/KPO Talents by 2012. Uniqua is now gearing up to train over 15000 students in colleges across India over the next one year in one of India’s largest ever BPO talent and employability development effort conceived by BCI and supported by various state governments in India. In fact the first leg of this initiative will commence right in August 2009 covering over 100 graduate colleges in the province of Orissa in India.

Continuing with its ambitious program of entering high-potential BPO nations and regions, the BCI Board cleared its decision for establishing a strong presence in the Caribbean region by end 2009. Known for its beautiful beaches, Calypso music and flamboyant cricket, the Caribbean archipelago is hot on tourism and is endowed with well-educated people resources and indeed, excellent nearshoring advantages for United States.

Away from much of the global hype and noise on BRIC nations, the US$ 1.5 billion Caribbean BPO industry is actually a solid mass of 135 service-provider outfits bubbling with nearly 65,000 agents. BCI research has spotted it growing at a phenomenal 250% over the last half a decade and by 2010 our projections are that this region will employ almost 100,000 agents.

The rapidly growing US$ 17 billion global KPO industry is set to welcome its very first set of international credentialing programs for entry-level staffers. The first two of BCI’s KPO credentialing programs, CFAP® (Certified Financial Analytics Professional) and CMAP® (Certified Marketing Analytics Professional) successfully cleared the critical 3rd stage of validation and are now just one step away from market launch. First filed for validation in early 2008, the CFAP® and CMAP® programs credential young talents with relevant educational backgrounds for KPO suitability on the basis of the BCI HCMS21 Standards, Release 3.1.

For starters, the Knowledge Process Outsourcing is dominated by India and countries like Russia, China, Philippines and Ireland are close on heels. Various market studies estimate that by 2010-11, this industry will employ about 350,000 knowledge workers. What makes KPO service delivery special is the requirement of knowledge in areas including but not limited to marketing research, equity research, patents and intellectual property, business research, actuarial science etc, and skills on the computer in special software tools related to information processing, analysis and communication.

The BCI standards on KPO human competence spell all critical knowledge and skill requirements for entry level positions in all common categories of KPO service providers. Targeting the largest class of KPO knowledge workers, the CFAP® is a credential for young talents, who wish to leverage their finance backgrounds and skills on the computer to make a career in financial analytics. The CMAP®, on the other hand, is an ideal credential for individuals interested in harnessing their knowledge and skills in Marketing research and statistics.

Credentialing programs in Survey Programming and Intellectual Property are also being filed for validation.

Asia concentrates the world’s largest proportion of BPO service providers, directly employing some 4 million people and doing more than half of the US$ 100 billion BPO business globally. In every possible way one can imagine, the socio-economic impact of BPO on this once-poor continent can only be termed monumental. Almost all Asian countries today are dabbling in BPO with India playing a powerful role-model. However, even as the competitive dynamics change in the continent and national/ local BPO industries experiment with alternate service-market combinations, the challenge of rightly-trained, qualified and credentialed workforce continues to threaten growth.

BCI’s Industry Research Services Group has kicked off the 2009 edition of Talent Scenario study for Asia -  its largest ever. The results of this project will be published in the BCI Asia Talent Report 2009 to be released in December 2009. Plans are to excerpt this report in one of Asia’s leading Business Journal as well.

The six month project will cover 18 nations. IRSG is designing this research to cover critical issues like “talent development”; social attitudes toward BPO; employee perception of BPO; attrition and manpower turnover etc.  Top 50% of BPO companies in each of the subject countries, government ministries and BPO trade bodies shall form the key respondent categories in this study. If you think you can contribute in this important project, please do write to us at asiatalentreport@bpocertifications.com and share your thoughts.

BCI’s India footprint is strengthening rapidly. Recently, one of India’s locally strongest IT and BPO training company, RippleSoft was appointed as BCI Network CTP. Ripplesoft is based out of the Orissa in India – a province which is known for its temples, culture, intellect and sunny beaches. Notably, RippleSoft is widely credited to have played a major role in helping Orissa develop human talent in information technology and computer science. In addition, RippleSoft has been facilitating recruitments and talent hunts for leading BPO organizations and over the last several years, thousands of young talents from the state have joined Indian IT and BPO industry thanks to RippleSoft’s efforts. 

BPO Certification Institute, Inc., (BCI), is well on its way to deepen its reach within the BPO stranglehold in Asia. BCI is now appointing the Philippines-based ECC International (ECCI)as its Regional Certification Training Provider (CTP). ECCI- South East Asia’s leading Training and Quality consulting organization with strong network in Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand will handle BCI’s Human Competence Certifications for BPO professionals. BCI Certifications are already available in almost all emerging BPO markets – including India and China - through the comprehensive BCI CTP partner network extending across more than 20 countries.  

“As an excellence-focused organization with proven experience and renown in quality management training & consulting, ECCI should be able to contribute critically to BCI’s efforts to promote world class human competence, service delivery and talent management standards in the South East Asian BPO industry” said Rajiv Gupta, President and Business Head of BCI.

Notably, BCI offers 17 certifications for 5 different levels of BPO operatives – fresh Associates/ Agents; Senior Associates; Team Leaders and Supervisors; Managers and Leaders.

As BCI’s Regional CTP, the ECCI Group will be responsible for training and preparing BPO professionals for the rigorous BCI Certification examinations in several ASEAN countries including Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. In the next phase, ECCI plans to set up another division that will handle implementation and audit operations for BCI’s Enterprise certifications – BSDQ22® and BTMQ10®  

In a unique initiative to help the ASEAN BPO industry graduate to the next level of competitiveness, BCI-ECCI partnership is expected to produce over 10,000 well-trained and BCI-certified supervisory and manager-level talents over the next 2 years. 

BCI finally approved its BSDQ22 Service Delivery Standards and the BTMQ10 Talent Management Quality Standards for the African, Latin American & Asia Pacific BPO Industry. This paves the way for hundreds of BPO services organizations to benchmark their service delivery and Talent management processes to global standards for the first time. It took nearly 2 years to validate these stringent Standards and Certifications, which for the first time anywhere cover BPOs other than contact centers and call centers.

The BSDQ22 maps BPO services delivery standards across 22 capability spheres and for the first time prescribes benchmarks for BPOs who are engaged in services far advanced and complex than voice-based call centers and help-desk contact centers. The BTMQ10 architecture has 5 levels and proposes to assess the HR and Talent systems of BPO organizations across 10 performance-critical parameters before assigning them a BTMQ10 Level.
Typically, a BTMQ10-Level 5 BPO will have the most advanced Talent Management Systems and therefore is likely to exhibit most reassuring levels of Resident Talent Quality, Employer Brand Equity, Talent Retention and Talent Performance/ Productivity. A leading Texas-based HR consulting organization has already been engaged by BCI to manage the BSDQ Certification audit and standards implementation operations worldwide. BCI has also commenced the process of appointing lead auditors and implementation partners for the BSDQ and BTMQ series of Certifications in other parts of the world.

The BPO juggernaut is rolling with a vengeance across the world and if there is anything that can actually stop or stutter it, its workforce shortage. As numerous studies conclude, the global BPO industry will be short of at least 2.0 million people by 2010 and this figure may well be higher if the industry grows at a higher rate. The most debilitating of these shortages is at the associate/ entry level in which India, the world’s leading BPO player-nation, alone needs whopping 1 million fresh talents. Considering this huge talent dearth, BCI launched its global Mission Million campaign in which the company and its partners worldwide will develop a pool of at least 1 million BPO-trained, BCI certified fresh talents. This initiative has already attracted attention of several national governments in Asia and Africa and many universities and colleges have already requested BCI to offer specially designed BPO Employability programs in their campuses. Watch this space more exciting news on this front. Indeed, you can write to us if you want your institution or nation to participate in this campaign.