WARM WELCOME: Governor Surjit Singh Barnala being greeted by the IT and Industries Secretary D. Rajendran at a conference organised by FICCI in Chennai on Tuesday. — Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: Offshoring of business processes and services could be a great social boon for developing countries provided the companies continuously apply, review and enhance socially responsible working practices, Governor Surjit Singh Barnala said here on Tuesday.

"If this is done properly, in coming years offshoring could be seen as a badge of corporate responsibility," he said inaugurating a conference on `Outsourcing business processes and services — a win-win situation,' organised by the Tamil Nadu council of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Challenges too

The emergence of the business process outsourcing sector appeared to be a catalyst for "positive changes in most instances," including infrastructure, law and society. Some of challenges that offshoring could pose would be the "environmental impact and pressures on traditional ways of life. But on balance, offshoring appears to be a catalyst ... "

Though the outlook for the sector looked bright, with existing customers scaling up their level of sourcing from India, it was, nevertheless, imperative to explore new markets beyond the U.S. and the U.K. The BPO outfits should tap the potential in Canada and in non-English markets such as Japan, Germany, France and Italy, whose aggregate spend account for 27 per cent of the world's IT services. These countries were also expected to generate business worth $4.5 billion by 2008.

There was a need to improve the quality and skills of the workforce in the sector and create a pool of manpower skilled in French, German, Japanese and Spanish languages to face the emerging competition from China and Eastern Europe, the Governor said.

Secretary to the IT and Industries departments of Tamil Nadu, D. Rajendran, said the Centre, through the Department of IT, was in touch with State Government for setting up a `bio IT Park' on about 100 acres near Chennai.

Incubation centre

The facility would serve as an incubation centre for the firms in the bio IT sector. Chennai, he said, would also play host to the Society for Electronics Transaction and Security.

Noting that Tamil Nadu had the potential to lead the economic growth of the country, adviser to the FICCI president P. Murari said the growing ability of India to handle any knowledge-intensive task was attracting attention the world over.

Even the British Civil Services had decided to outsource certain tasks to India.

FICCI State Council chairman M. Rafeeque Ahmed said the ITES-BPO sectors, which were expected to achieve revenues of $ 20 billion by 2008, needed to focus on people retention and becoming more efficient.

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